Knights of the Old Republic: A Very Unauthorized Rewrite
by 500 Metric Tonnes of Palladium
Summary: "Most people aren't seven feet tall, and can't shoot laser bolts from their eyes. Revan could." Those were the words of Darth Irenaceus, a former actor-turned-Sith Lord. But who can say what's truth and what's fiction when it comes to Revan? AU. Recton. Reboot. F. Revan.
1. A Space Oddity

**Author's Notes**

_This not-quite-a-novelization of _Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic_ is going to a bit of an experiment on my part. Not only is it going to be the longest thing I've ever written, it's also the first attempt I've ever made at creating a story within the _Star Wars_ universe. This could either be a great success...or it could end up crashing and burning spectacularly._

_First things first - if anyone is expecting this to be _Inglorious Bosh'tets_ in a Galaxy Far, Far Away, you're going to be disappointed. Yes, there is a great deal of silly stuff in this story, such as former actor-turned-Sith Lord, and a Jedi Exile who was the leader singer for a band that's the _Star Wars_ equivalent of Black Sabbath, but on the whole it will likely be a bit less crack fic-ish. This is the result of two things - one, I actually have this story planned out, instead of just making it up as I go along as I did with _Inglorious Bosh'tets_. Second, I feel that _Inglorious Bosh'tets_ and the sequel were like canned lightning - once it's been let out, you won't ever get it back again no matter how hard you try. So if _Inglorious Bosh'tets_ was like Slayer's "Reign in Blood," then this is like their follow-up album "South of Heaven." If I get around to writing a sequel, one that covers the events of Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords, it will likely be even more serious still, since I want to do justice to the themes and issues that that game deals with. It will also feature a full-fledged romance arc, something I've never attempted before.  
_

_(And just to clear things up for all the people who have sent me private messages: No, I will NOT be writing any more stories set in the _Mass Effect_ universe. _Mass Effect 3_ was such an awful, awful game that it completely destroyed any interest in have in the series, and I don't foresee anything changing that)_

_The inspiration for writing this story came from two things. The first was my decision to play the first KotOR again after several years, which rekindled my interest in the Galaxy Far, Far Away after it had been driven into the ground by the awful prequels and the vast amount of rubbish in the EU. The second was my disgust at what Drew Karpyshyn did in his book _Revan. _Quite simply, that book has no reason to exist save to prop up BioWare's 150-million-dollar boondoggle that is _The Old Republic_, and to give a contrived reason for shoehorning Revan into the game as a mid-level raid boss. But the worst thing about the book was the Exile's fate, which was absolutely atrocious and rendered much of the events of KotOR2 pointless. Needless to say, I felt compelled, no, OBLIGATED to write something better._

_Now, the warnings. First, this an alternate universe story, meaning that a great deal of the original story will be bent, folded, and otherwise mutilated. The reason for this is that straight novelisation would be boring for me to write, and probably rather boring for you to read. Quite simply, it's much more fun to take a story into places the original never went to, rather than just slavishly copying every single plot point of the original game._

_And if anyone wants to know what the main character of this story looks like, see the links in my profile page (copy and paste them into your browser)  
_

Prologue – A Space Oddity

* * *

A seven-foot-tall Echani, sitting by herself in the mess hall of the _Endar Spire. _None of the other crewmembers dared to speak with her, going out of their way to sit as far from her as they could. Anyone would have thought her a very attractive woman, with her long, white hair, sharply-chiselled features, and pale, milky-white skin, but any man who saw her was immediately struck by the impression that, should they make any sort of advance on her, they would be rent limb from limb in a very short order.

Her name was Aina Kaamos, and she was one of several "independent contractors" that the Republic had recently hired to aid in their war with the Sith. Most of these "independent contractors" were bounty hunters or smugglers, which only made Aina stand out all the more. No one knew much about her, save that she was from the Echani homeworld of Eshan, and that she had been handpicked for this mission on account her prowess as a warrior. Like most of her kind, she disdained blasters and other projectile weapons in favour of a rather vicious-looking vibroblade, and instead of armour she wore a long, white robe that was elaborately embroidered with silver and golden thread. A single scar running down her face below her left eye suggested that she was no stranger to battle.

Across the room, a pair of ensigns, Rothemden and Tykin Ruoka, were busy discussing the new recruit.

"You know, Suli says that when Echani practice fighting, they don't wear anything except their underwear. Or sometimes, they don't wear anything at all!"

Tykin rolled his eyes. "What? You can't believe anything that guy says."

"He swears it's true. Something about not restricting their movement, or something like that."

"Hmph, sounds like just another one of his perverted fantasies."

Rothemden glanced over at the Echani woman. "Go ask her yourself, if you don't believe me."

"What? I'm not asking her!" Tykin exclaimed. "Look at her; she's a bloody giant! She'd probably rip out my spine and beat me to death with it!"

A few moments of silence passed between the two, before they began engaging in activity well-known to all soldiers: complaining about the people in charge. Specifically, the Jedi who had all but taken over the ship.

"You had a chance to see any of those Jedi yet?" Rothemden asked.

"No, of course not. You know how Jedi are; too good to come down here and speak with a bunch of grunts like us."

"Well I was the bridge yesterday, and one of the Jedi, Bastila, kept getting into it with Onasi. I swear, those two argued about everything like some old married couple. After a few minutes of that I would have gnawed my own arm off to just get away from them."

Tykin snorted in derision. "Typical. You get a lightsaber in your hand, and the first thing it does is turn you into some smug, condescending prick. You should have seen the way my cousin started acting after he joined the Jedi Academy. 'Course, he wasn't so smug after they kicked him out."

Rothemden raised an eyebrow. "Why did he get kicked out? He couldn't lift the rocks?"

"No, he accidentally dropped his lightsaber while it was turned on, and the thing bored its way right to the planet's core. His master wasn't too pleased about that."

"I'll bet! Still, it's hard to believe that they'd kick him out just for that."

"Well, there was more to it than that. Specifically, he got caught hooking up power couplings with a fellow apprentice. Guess the Jedi Council doesn't look too highly upon that sort of thing."

Before Rothemden could respond, they were joined at their table by Trask Ulgo, another ensign, who was bearing a self-satisfied grin on his face. "Hey, guess who's getting the big promotion tomorrow?"

"Congratulations," Tykin replied, without a hint of emotion in his voice.

"That's right," said Trask, taking a seat, "tomorrow you're going to have to address me as _Lieutenant _Trask Ulgo! How does that sound?"

"Sounds like someone's got a swollen head," muttered Tykin.

Trask ignored his remark. "And that's not all! Me and my fiancée, we just bought this big house on Dantooine! We're moving in after I'm done with my tour of duty. I swear, right now, I feel like I could take on the whole Sith Empire myself!"

"You know, Trask," said Rothemden, "since you're getting married and all, you really ought to consider getting a life insurance policy. You know how dangerous this job can be, what with the war on, and all."

Trask dismissed his suggestion with a wave of his hand. "I'm sure it can wait until this battle's over."

"So, _Lieutenant _Trask Ulgo," said Tykin mockingly, "have you heard anything about that huge Echani woman over there? We were just talking about her."

"I just heard that she's someone that Bastila wanted specifically for this mission. Apparently, she was impressed by her skill with a vibroblade. Knowing Bastila, that's saying something."

"Yes, well, who cares what she thinks? I'm sick of hearing this bollocks about how that woman's the 'key to our war efforts' and all that. Why should I be impressed just because she can sit there and think happy thoughts to all of us while _we're _the ones doing the fighting and dying?"

"It's not 'thinking happy thoughts', Tykin," Trask retorted. "The Jedi technique of Battle Meditation can influence entire armies."

"You know what else can influence entire armies? Some decent bloody food!" Rothemden exclaimed, pointing at the meagre rations on his plate. "I swear, this stuff skirts the boundary of what can be considered edible."

Just then, Aina stood up from her table, giving everyone a clear view of her immense height. To the trio's horror, she began walking directly towards their table.

"You should spend less time gossiping, and more time concentrating on the coming battle," she said, her voice imperious and commanding. "And for the sake of your enlightenment, should an Echani woman ever offer to spar with you whilst wearing naught but her unmentionables, then you would do well to be afraid, for it would mean that she has chosen you as her mate, and there is no force in the galaxy that can thwart her desire." She left the mess hall without saying a word more.

"She could hear us?" Rothemden said, a look of horror on his face.

The three of them said nothing more, each one retreating by himself to his bunk in the lower levels of the _Endar Spire._ None of them were aware that they would all be dead within the following day. Truly, it is the lot of low-ranking crewmen throughout the galaxy to serve no purpose to but to die horribly, so that the danger of the situation may be illustrated to more important individuals.


	2. An Inglorious Beginning

Chapter 2 – An Inglorious Beginning

* * *

_"What can change the nature of a man?"_

Those were the words of Master Devros, and Darth Irenaceus had struck him down for asking such an asinine rhetorical question. Though "striking him down" was not an appropriate expression; rather, Irenaceus had hurled the man upwards through the power of the Force, then stood beneath him with his lightsaber whirling above his head. As his master had fallen into the spinning blade, pieces of him had gone flying in every direction, and the memory of that event never failed to make Irenaceus snort and giggle at the sheer hilarity of it.

"Do you know why the dark side will always prevail, Admiral Karath?"

"Be...because it is stronger, Lord Irenaceus?" As always, Karath spoke in a stammering, halting manner, clearly terrified out of his wits by the Sith Lord.

"Well, there's _that,_ of course, but there is something else. Quite simply, the dark side is stronger, yes, but it also has the quality of just being _more fun._ There is nothing quite like the feeling of lifting a man off his feet, choking the life from him, and then hurling him down an elevator shaft. Or reaching into the very depths of his mind, making his worst nightmares play out before him, reducing to him a gibbering wreck, right before hurling him down an elevator shaft. Or perhaps I shall make him writhe in agony as I send waves of lightning coursing through his body, snap his bones one by one through the Force, drain the very life from his body, cast his mind into the very depths of madness, and make him suffer to the point where he is begging for death. And just to top it all off, I then hurl him down an elevator shaft. So you see, Admiral, the terms "Dark Side" and "Light Side" are completely specious. It would be far more accurate to call them the 'Fun Side' and the 'Humdrum Side'."

Karath took one step backwards. "I...I see, Lord Irenaceus."

He laughed in the admiral's face. "No, you _don't _see, Karath, and you should hope that you never do! You _do_ realise that, at any moment, I can have you killed in an indescribably horrible way?"

"Y...yes, Lord Irenaceus!"

It never ceased to please the Sith Lord when he reminded Karath of this fact, which was about once a day. "Of course, I do need someone to perform all this dull business of ordering the ships about, don't I? That, and it's nice to have someone to talk to now and then; if I killed you, I'd have to talk with Captain Nexxel, and he's a bit of a prick, he is. I say, ISN'T THAT RIGHT, NEXXEL?"

"Yes, Lord Irenaceus!" came a muffled voice from below the bridge walkway.

He spun around, making sure to give his golden cape a dramatic twirl as he did. "Now, back to the business at hand. Is the fleet in position?"

"Yes, milord. When the Republic fleet emerges from hyperspace, we will be waiting in ambush."

"Excellent. And have you determined which ship Bastila will be travelling on?"

"She and a contingent of Jedi are travelling on the frigate _Endar Spire,_ milord."

"Then I shall have my apprentice Darth Bandon lead a boarding party to capture her. Which means for the next few hours I must _not_ be disturbed, as I will spending that time thinking up the most agonising death imaginable for her."

"If I may make a...small suggestion...milord?" said Karath, mustering whatever shreds of courage he still possessed whenever he spoke with Lord Irenaceus.

"All right, I'll humour you this time. What is it?"

"Perhaps it would be...wiser...to simply_ destroy_ the _Endar Spire,_ milord? We would achieve of our objective of killing Bastila with far less risk of failure."

Irenaceus rolled his eyes at the admiral's suggestion. "Karath, Karath, Karath...you just don't _get _it, do you? We Sith _never_ do things the easy way!No, we do things the _hard_ way, because that way we grow stronger. That was the wisdom of Lord Revan."

Karath resisted the urge to groan at the mention of that name. Like everyone else who followed Irenaceus, he was thoroughly sick of hearing about the exploits of Darth Revan, which seemed to grow more and more unbelievable with each telling.

"Let me tell you a story about Revan, Admiral. A few years ago, we were exploring an ancient Sith ruin deep in the jungles of some remote world in the Outer Rim. Whoever built it clearly did not desire visitors, as it was filled with deadly traps, all of which we managed to avoid, save for one. In the darkness, Revan made the misfortune of stepping on a pressure plate, causing the floor beneath to give way. I avoided plunging into the depths, but Revan was not so lucky. Down below awaited not one, not two, but _three_ ravenous rancors, who had been making meals of unwary visitors to those ruins for who knows how long. Anyhow, I was certain that Revan was done for, but you should know, admiral, that my master triumphed over those beasts, and we escaped those ruins. And how was it done? With a lightsaber? With the Force? No, it was Revan's _bare hands_ that slew the rancors! Most people can't beat a trio of rancors to death with their fists. Revan could. And so when Revan said that we do things the hard way, then we do them the hard way! Understand?"

"Yes, Lord Irenaceus."

"And let us not forget, admiral, that I have, shall we say, _unfinished business_ with Bastila," he said, raising his cybernetic right arm. "She's the reason I have _this!_ I guess Bastila's a rather _disarming_ woman, wouldn't you say? Get it? Because she cut off my arm? Eh? Eh?"

No one on the bridge made so much as a titter.

"Wow, tough ship. What an uptight lot you are! Well, they always said I should have stuck to drama instead of comedy. So let us make a suitably _dramatic_ impression on the Republic fleet, shall we? The skies of Taris shall soon be set alight with the burning wreckage of their ships..._glorious!"_

* * *

A thundering explosion jolted Aina from her sleep, which was followed by the sounds of shouting and blaster fire. Immediately she sprung to her feet, only to be thrown against the wall as another explosion rocked the ship. Blaster bolts streaked by the window while warning sirens blared left and right, and all Aina felt was a sense of outrage that battle had commenced and no one had bothered to inform her of this fact.

She was still dressed in her usual attire, as there was no way she was going to disrobe in front the rest of the crew. So far she had not been impressed by her comrades-in-arms; they did not seem to treat the upcoming battle with any degree of respect, and she had little confidence in their skill at arms. Like nearly everyone else in the galaxy, they used blasters, which Aina considered random, clumsy, nigh-useless weapons used only by those who lacked the skill to wield a blade.

After grabbing her vibroblade from beneath her bunk, Aina quickly exited the crew quarters, unsure of where she should go. How she hated the design of the Republic's vessels, with their sterile, white corridors that all looked the same! Prior to joining with the Republic, Aina had never been beyond her homeworld of Eshan, and so far her experiences with space travel had not been endearing, to say the least. The notion that all that stood between her and the empty vacuum of space was a few inches of hull plating was downright horrifying to one such as her.

In the hallway beyond the crew quarters, she spied the three Republic soldiers who had been gossiping about her the day before. One of them was named Trask, but the names of the other two escaped her; not that they were important, anyway. The trio had been pinned down behind a stack of crates by a pair of Sith, and the two groups were presently exchanging blaster fire, and despite the short range between them, no one was able to hit their targets.

"You!" exclaimed Trask when he saw Aina standing behind him. "Where have you been? We've been boarded by the Sith!"

"No one bothered to wake me when the attack began," she said flatly, remaining utterly calm despite the blaster bolts flying about.

"We're trying to reach the bridge," Trask explained. "We have to defend Bastila! She's the one the Sith are after!"

Aina was unmoved by the urgent tone of his voice. "I am sure the Jedi can take of herself. You three, on the other hand, I am not so certain of. How is it that two Sith are giving you such difficulty?"

Rothemden glanced up at her with an amazed expression, incredulous that she could be asking such questions in the middle of fire-fight. "Well I don't see _you _doing anything!" he snapped at her.

"Observe, how a true warrior fights!" she declared, gripping her vibroblade tightly. Ignoring the blaster bolts flying about (which seemed to her as if they were travelling so slowly that she had all day to dodge them), she charged at the two Sith soldiers.

Nothing in the experience of these two Sith could have prepared them for the sight of a seven-foot-tall Echani charging towards them with a vibroblade raised high. The first had barely enough time to utter a few curse words in surprise before Aina separated his head from his body with one forceful blow. The other Sith opened fire with his blaster rifle, but Aina twisted and turned with nigh-unnatural agility to avoid his shots, right before she ran him through, the Sith's metallic armour doing little to protect him from her blade. She wrenched her sword free, and then Sith emitted a ghastly gurgling noise as he crumpled to the floor in a pool of blood.

"Holy _frak!" _Tykin cried.

"Onwards, then," Aina said coolly.

The three Republic soldiers timidly made their way past her, each casting a terrified glance as they did. _These are the ones the Republic calls warriors?_ she thought. _The fear in their eyes is obvious. __How can we expect to defeat the Sith with men such as this? _Amongst the Echani, no one would dare show fear before a coming battle, no matter how inwardly terrified one was. Naturally, she could not expect the soldiers of the Republic to display the élan or valour of an Echani, but surely they possessed more mettle than this!

Her personal communicator crackled to life (not knowing where else to place it, she had stuffed it up the sleeve of her robe. _"This is Carth Onasi! The Sith are going to overrun our position unless we get reinforcements! All hands to the bri-"_ The transmission was cut off the sound of several blaster bolts being fired.

"Let's hope Onasi just took one right between the eyes," Tykin muttered.

Rothemden was of the same mind. "If he's the one left in charge, we'd better all just shoot ourselves right now."

Trask shot him an angry glare. "Don't be stupid! Carth's seen more combat than the rest of the Endar Spire's crew put together!"

"That cannot be much, judging from what I have seen," Aina added wryly.

Before Trask could offer his rebuke the ship was rocked by another massive explosion, causing a whole new wave of warning sirens to begin blaring. Even Aina, who had next to no experience with space travel, could tell that the _Endar Spire_ was lost. Evidently Tykin and Rothemden realised this as well.

"That's it, we're not staying around to get blown up by the Sith," Tykin declared. "We're getting to the escape pods!"

Predictably, this did not sit well with Trask. "Get back here!" he cried, but to no effect. The two soldiers were already fleeing as fast as they could to the escape pods on the lower levels.

Aina whirled around to face Trask. "If you wish to see why the war with the Sith is going so badly, you need look no further. Our own comrades-in-arms forswear their plighted troth and flee the moment they are threatened. How are we supposed to find victory with men such as this?"

Trask scratched his head. "Plighted what? Never mind, let's just get to the bridge!"

She was not about to let her point go, however. "Things won't turn out well for us if this is the way the crew behaves. When I swore an oath to defend the Republic, I did so with the expectation that I would be fighting alongside warriors, not children! Is there no one on this ship who can show me true mettle?"

Aina found the answer to her question when Trask led her into the hallway beyond. No sooner had the door opened was she confronted with sound of clashing lightsabers. A Jedi and Sith were locked in a mortal struggle, their sabers whirling about so fast that they seemed like a blur of colour to Aina's eyes.

"A dark Jedi!" Trask exclaimed, as if there could be any doubt as to whom the Jedi faced. "Just stay back! There's nothing we can do against an enemy like that!"

She did not hear his words, so transfixed was she on the duel playing out before. The Republic soldiers' method of fighting had consisted largely of helpless flailing about, punctuated by occasional bouts of dying, but here genuine martial skill was on display. _This_ was real valour, _here_ was a true warrior, and at that moment Aina had a realisation...she would possess such power as this. She knew not how, only that it was fated to be so. The thought lasted only second before she realised it was pure folly on her part.

As she expected, the Jedi soon gained the upper hand over her foe. With a skilful feint she tricked her opponent into guarding in the wrong direction, and took this opportunity to deal the Sith a fatal blow, nearly cutting him in half. But the Jedi had only a second to enjoy her triumph, as a blast rocked the ship with such ferocity that it caused the ceiling to collapse upon her, killing her instantly. That such an outrageous fate might befall a warrior was obscene to her, though perhaps there was a valuable lesson to be learned from it: the power of the Force was nothing compared to the power of sheer bad luck.

Trask ran over to the Jedi and stated the obvious. "Damn! We could have used her help!"

Aina was about to continue on her way when she noticed that Trask was surreptitiously leaning down to pick up the fallen Jedi's lightsaber.

In an instant she descended upon Trask with all the fury of an enraged krayt dragon."Put that down!" she snapped, her eyes blazing. "That weapon was made for her hand alone! It is as much a part of her as her arms and legs; you might as well be taking her head as a trophy!"

Trask let the lightsaber drop to the floor with a loud _clang._ "I, uh, was just having a look at it, that's all!" he stammered, clearly terrified of her wrath. "Uh, let's just keep going."

He led her to the bridge, which had obviously been the scene of a major battle, judging by the large number of dead bodies piled about. Having never seen the bridge of a starship before, Aina was stunned by the sight of row after row of computer terminals and consoles, wondering how anyone could make sense of it all. Her reverie was interrupted by a Sith fighter strafing the _Endar Spire,_ causing it to shudder violently and several of the computer consoles to explode in a brilliant shower of sparks. Anyone unfortunate enough to be sitting at one of the consoles would have been killed instantly, which seemed to Aina to be a needlessly-hazardous design.

"Damn, Bastila's not here, and neither is Carth!" Trask exclaimed. "They must have already left in the escape pods. The Sith want Bastila alive; with her gone there's nothing stopping them from blowing this ship to smithereens!"

Aina knew, having trained as a warrior all her life, that death was a very real possibility in every battle. But the thought of dying when one's ship exploded, without ever getting the chance to see one's attacker face-to-face, was too terrible to contemplate, and only strengthened her resolve to get off the _Endar Spire._

Striding over the corpses of Sith and Republic soldiers, the two of them made their way through the bridge as the Sith fleet continued to pound the ship with blaster fire. The hallway beyond split into two corridors, one leading to the escape pods, the other deeper into the ship. Aina guessed that this arrangement was so that the higher-ranking officers could make it to the escape pods before anyone else.

The far door opened, and they heard the unmistakable sound of a lightsaber igniting. A man stood before them, wielding a double-bladed lightsaber and clad in the black robes of the Sith. He was completely bald, though he sported a ridiculous-looking goatee that would have made Aina laugh, were she the sort to express her feelings that brazenly.

"You there!" said the Sith, brandishing his lightsaber. "Tell me where the Jedi Bastila is, and perhaps you will live."

"She has already left," Aina answered flatly.

The Sith recoiled in horror. "Aw hell, my master is going to have my head for this! Look, I won't say anything if you don't. I'll just tell him that she got blown out into space or something..." Just then the Sith seemed to have a sudden insight. "Wait a minute, you're Republic soldiers! I'm supposed to be killing you, aren't I? Have at you!"

Before Aina could even raise her vibroblade, Trask drew his own sword. "I'll hold him off! You get to the escape pods!"

"You fool! This foe is beyond you!"

Trask was having none of it. "_Go!_"

Aina hesitated for just a moment before turning and fleeing down the adjoining passageway. Every fibre of her being was naming her a coward for abandoning a comrade-in-arms, and despite the contempt that she had shown towards the Republic soldiers, she was forced to concede that perhaps there was some honour in them after all, if one of them were willing to sacrifice himself so that she might escape.

Her personal communicator crackled to life once again. _"This is Carth Onasi! Anyone still alive, you must make your way to the starboard escape pods! There's not much time!"_

Aina pulled the communicator out of her sleeve. "This is Aina Kaamos. I do not think anyone else is coming, Onasi."

_"Just get here as quick as you can!"_

The ship was rocked by a series of explosions as a Sith battleship raked the _Endar Spire_ from stem to stern with turbolaser fire, throwing Aina to the floor. More warnings blared over the comm system, indicating that decks such-and-such had lost atmosphere, that decks so-and-so were now flooded with lethal levels of radiation, and that anyone with at least two functioning brain cells ought to be making their way to the escape pods with all haste.

She got to her feet and continued down the hallway, following the signs that were helpfully labelled "Escape Pods," along with a cartoonish diagram of a man running down a burning hallway. All around her the _Endar Spire _was falling apart, with computer consoles exploding, ceilings collapsing, power conduits overloading, and maintenance droids scurrying about in a futile effort to save the ship. Aina loathed these mechanical men that people in the galaxy so often employed, finding them to be contemptible mockeries of life. But this was not the time to dwell on such things.

As she ran, Aina passed a large window, and through it she could see that the battle was quite clearly going very poorly for the Republic. The _Endar_ _Spire_ was tumbling end over end, but she could easily make out the burning hulks of Republic vessels as they plummeted towards the world of Taris. It was certainly an ignoble beginning to her tenure with Republic, being involved in such a crushing defeat. Still, she was determined not to die in this place. A warrior deserved better.

Past the next door she quite literally stumbled into Carth Onasi, the Republic soldier the crew had spoken of (usually with a fair amount of derision). Like many other non-Echani men, Carth sported facial hair, a look Aina found repulsive (amongst the Echani, facial hair was considered crude and barbaric).

"You've made it just in time!" said Carth, being forced to glance up upward at Aina at an awkward angle, given the height disparity between the two. "There's only one escape pod left. Now let's get off this ship before the Sith blow it to pieces!"

Ahead lay a row of circular hatchways, with only one open at present. Not bothering to speak even one word to Carth, she stooped down to enter the escape pod, only to find that her immense height made the task more difficult than she imagined.

"I apologise, Carth," she said, with a hint of embarrassment in her voice, "but this escape pod is meant for someone shorter than I."

"Yeah, and so is everything else in the galaxy! Now let's go!"

Though it required a bit of rather painful contortion on her part, Aina managed to climb into the escape pod, with Carth following close behind. As soon as they were both inside, Carth hit the ejection switch, causing the escape pod hatch to close with a loud _hiss._ A second later the escaped pod was jettisoned with such force that Aina was thrown against the bulkhead, and as she clung to the crash webbing she caught a glimpse through the porthole of a Sith battlecruiser unleashing a barrage of turbolaser fire on the _Endar Spire,_ completely obliterating it in a fiery maelstrom.

"There goes number thirty-seven," Carth said, in a rather cryptic fashion. Aina had no time to ask him what he meant by this, as a brief glance through the escape pod's forward porthole revealed that the pod was rapidly approaching the surface of Taris. The pod shuddered as it encountered the upper levels of Taris' atmosphere, and moments later it was wreathed in fire from the heat of re-entry.

"I do not wish to alarm you, Carth," she said calmly, "but it would appear that this pod is heading towards the planet at a high rate of speed. Might it be wise to slow our rate of descent before we impact the surface?"

"Republic escape pods are equipped with retrorockets that should automatically fire when we're at the right altitude."

Predictably, this did not reassure Aina in the slightest. "'Should?' You do not sound terribly confident of this fact."

"Let's just say you'd better brace for impact!"

By this point, one could make out the individual buildings on the surface of Taris. From what she could see, the city covered the entire surface of the planet, a sure sign that the Tarisians had no concept of the word "enough."

"Hold on!" Carth cried, being forced to shout over the roar of the air rushing past.

Finding nothing else to hold on, Aina clung to the crash webbing as the city below rushed up to meet them. She did not feel any sense of deceleration, which could only mean that those retrorockets Carth mentioned had failed to fire, and the two of them were about to meet a very swift end.

_Not this way_...that was the last thought in her head before the escape pod slammed into the side of a building. The force of the impact sent her flying through the inside of the pod, slamming her head-first against the opposite bulkhead. A sharp, splitting pain was all she felt before everything went black.

* * *

"Um...Lord Irenaceus, there is...something...of importance that I...I must discuss with you..."

Irenaceus sighed. "I can tell by your snivelling tone, admiral, that you have some bad news to report, so you might as well just spit it out."

Karath cleared his throat and took a step back, in order to remain out of striking distance. "I'm afraid that the strike team led by your apprentice has...failed...to capture Bastila."

He burst out laughing. "Oh Karath, you silly little man! For a moment there I thought you said that the strike team had failed to capture Bastila! Wouldn't that just be absurd?" But at that instant the realisation struck him. "Wait, that _is_ what you said, wasn't it?" Rage swelled up inside him, and he was about to choke the life out of Admiral Karath before common sense got the better of him. "Well, admiral, I must admit that I _was_ about to kill you, but I realise now that this is not your fault. My apprentice was the one tasked with capturing Bastila, and if he survived, then he shall answer to me for his failure. He _did_ survive, didn't he?"

"Yes, milord, he's on his way to the bridge as we speak."

As if on cue, the doors to the bridge slid open and Irenaceus' apprentice, Darth Bandon, stepped through. But he had clearly not returned victorious, as he was limping forward, clutching a deep wound in his side. His body was covered and cuts and bruises, and he bore constant, pained expression on his face.

"Ah, my apprentice returns! By the stars, man! What happened to you?"

Bandon grimaced as he spoke. "I fought my way through the _Endar Spire _as you ordered, master, and I...I was making my way to the bridge_._" He let out a cry of pain, and nearly fell to his knees before regaining his composure. "A Republic ensign attacked me, so that his comrade could make it to the escape pods. We fought, and...and..."

"And what? Out with it!"

Darth Bandon could barely speak the words. "I was..._defeated..."_

Irenaceus threw up his hands in frustration. "_Defeated?"_ he thundered. "By a lowly _ensign_? Oh, oh, that's just bloody _great_! Did you hear that everyone?" He began pacing back and forth across the bridge, speaking loudly enough so that everyone in the room could hear him. "My apprentice, whom I have trained in the arts of the dark side for _two years_, was tasked with boarding the _Endar Spire _and bringing me the Jedi Bastila. Now, apparently my bald-headed understudy has informed that he has failed in his appointed task. Should I remind him of how we Sith deal with failure?"

Bandon dropped to his knees. "Please, master! I...I will redeem myself! Send me to the planet's surface, and I will bring you this Jedi you seek!"

Irenaceus rolled his eyes. "Oh, I don't know, my apprentice!" he shot back, the sarcasm positively dripping from his voice. "Hundreds of Republic escape pods crashed on Taris. Who knows how many of them were filled with _ensigns?_ They might just be _too much for you to handle! _Bah! Get out of my sight, and be grateful that I did not see fit to hurl your worthless carcass down an elevator shaft!"

Bandon limped away, while Irenaceus spun around to address the bridge crewmembers. "Let this be a lesson to you all: we Sith do not tolerate failure! Well, _usually_ we don't tolerate failure. Sometimes we do, like I did with my apprentice just now, but don't get any sort of notion in your heads that this is going to be a regular occurrence! Believe me, if Revan were still here, my apprentice would have been reduced to a smouldering, carbogelatinous heap faster than you can say 'Sithspit!' No one dared bring news of failure to Lord Revan, and one look at that god-amongst-men would tell you why! Because most people aren't seven feet tall, and can't shoot laser bolts from their eyes. Revan could." Yet Irenaceus, who was never known for his steady moods, quickly calmed himself. "But enough about my former master. It's time for my weekly fireside chat with the troops. Bring me the cam droid, admiral!"

Admiral Karath vanished, and return a few minutes later with the floating camera droid following behind. The droid switched on its spotlight, illuminating Irenaceus with nearly-blinding glare. Being a former stage actor, of course, he was used it.

"Is the channel open?" he asked.

"Yes, milord, we're broadcasting to the entire fleet."

Irenaceus stiffened his back and stared into the lens of the cam droid. "Greetings from the _Leviathan,_ to all my brothers- and sisters-in-arms of the Sith! I'm pleased to report that we have utterly crushed the Republic fleet, and the wreckage of their ships is now plummeting to the surface of Taris below." (Naturally, he decided to leave out the bit about how they had failed to capture Bastila) "With this latest victory, I predict that by the month's end the Republic will lie in ruins, and the Sith shall establish their place as the rightful rulers of the galaxy. But I'm sure you all know that. Now for what you've all been waiting for: my weekly mail session, where I answer questions posed to me from Sith all across the galaxy."

He brought up his datapad. "Our first letter comes to us from Nahanna Surik, writing to us from our academy on Korriban. She asks, _'Dear Lord __Irenaceu__s: In your last broadcast, you said that the best way for a Sith to kill his enemy is by hurling him down an elevator shaft. My question is this: in the absence of any elevator shafts, is hurling someone over a railing an acceptable way to kill __them__?'"_

Irenaceus looked up into the lens of the cam droid. "An excellent question! As I'm sure many of you are aware of, many places in this galaxy are not very well-appointed when it comes to elevator shafts. Should one be lacking for shaftage, tossing your enemy over a railing is most _definitely_ acceptable. In fact, I'd rate the 'railing kill' as the second best method of destroying your foe after the elevator shaft. Just make that they're actually _dead,_ of course. Rule of thumb: if you seem someone fall, but you don't see em' go splat_,_ then they ain't dead. Now, on to the next question..."

"This one comes to us from our own fleet, from one Kataan Manala. He asks, _'Lord __Irenaceu__s: __First, what was it that made you go from being an actor to a Sith? Second, what would you consider your best role? Third, do you ever think of going back to the stage?'_"

"Well, Kataan, to answer your first question, I've always felt the transition from galaxy-acclaimed actor to Sith Lord was a logical one. As an actor, you've got to submerse yourself so completely in your role that the audience does not see you, but rather the character you're playing. And part of becoming a Sith is casting off completely what life you had before and fully embracing your role as a practitioner of the dark side. And besides, what is acting but deceit and the art of faking sincerity? Those are two skills that are utterly indispensable for anyone wishes to call himself a Sith."

"As for your second question, that's easy. Of all the roles I've played, the one closest to my heart was that of Athelkin in the stage adaptation of the epic love story, _Across the Stars._ When we first put on the play at the Corioline Marlee Theatre on Alderaan, there was not a dry eye in the audience by the time the curtains closed, with the last thing they saw being Athelkin cradling the dead body of his lover in his arms. An interesting fact some of you might not be aware of: the Jedi responsible for completely obliterating the Malachor system, and who was once the lead singer of the band Blacksaber, was actually the one who wrote the original _Across the Stars_ novel! I'd really like to meet him and convince him to write a sequel where Athelkin's lover, Princess Saelda, comes back to life, because the ending of the original story was just too damned depressing. But that's neither here nor there."

"And to answer your third question, yes, there is not a day that goes past where I don't wish I could be back on stage, making audiences laugh and cry. But being a Sith Lord is a full-time occupation, I'm afraid, which leaves me with little time for performances. Though, when this war is over, you can certain that I _will_ be making a glorious return to theatre! In fact, I'm working on a novel at this very moment that details Revan's rise to power, and I fully intended to adapt to the stage once it's finished. Of course, my skills as a writer pale next to those of Revan. Most people can't turn out a 500,000 word novel in less than a day. Revan could."

"Which brings me to the last letter for today, this one coming from right here on the _Leviathan,_ from one Amorfis Tull, who asks, '_Dear Lord __Irenaceus:__ I__ realise that it is standard Sith operating procedure for the apprentice to betray his master. Yet I wonder, do you ever regret betraying Lord Revan__'__?"_

"Every day, Amorfis. Every day. Revan was not just my master, but my friend. But the traditions of the Sith are absolute, and what would we Sith be if we were not so murderously short-sighted? So it was inevitable that I would have kill my master. Just thinking about it makes me kind of sad, actually. _Really_ sad. Like, seriously depressed and all. Eh...I don't feel like answering any more questions right now. Admiral, switch it off."

Karath dutifully complied and sent the cam droid on its way. "Shall I begin preparations for landing troops, Lord Irenaceus?"

"Of course, admiral. And I, uh, suppose they'll need a physical description of Bastila if they're to find her, won't they? In that case, tell them that they're looking for a woman that's five-foot-so-and-so, with brown hair and blue eyes. Oh, and she's a bit of a stuck-up bint, too. But she's also got a great rack, so I guess it all balances out in the end."

Admiral Karath sighed and went off to carry out his orders.


	3. Into The Pit

Chapter 3 – Into the Pit

* * *

There was a man with long, flowing locks of golden hair, wielding a blood-red lightsaber in his hand. Opposite him was a woman, clad in the familiar robes of the Jedi and bearing a yellow double-bladed lightsaber. Standing some distance away was an older man, dressed in a military uniform, and who seemed to be watching the proceedings with a mixture of boredom and contempt on his face.

"And now the Jedi prodigy Bastila stands before me," said the blond man. "Observe, Karath, as I proceed to chop her into little itty-bitty bits."

The older man sighed, as if this sort of farce were all too familiar to him.

"So, Bastila," said the blond man, "shall we dance a deadly dance..._of death?"_

She gave no word in reply and charged at her opponent, their lightsabers clashing in a flurry of sparks. For a while they fought each furiously, with neither one gaining an advantage over the other. But it was not long before Bastila swiftly parried an overhead blow from the blond man, and followed it up with a fierce blow that severed the entirety of his left arm. The blond man backed away and looked down at his missing limb with an unexpectedly nonchalant expression on his face.

"By the stars, admiral! She's cut off my arm!"

"By the stars, sir, she has!"

* * *

Aina awoke from the dream with a throbbing headache, deeply puzzled over what she had just experienced. She knew that dreams were meaningless, but there was something different about this one; it was more like a vision than a dream. And while most dreams began to fade the moment one awoke, this one seemed to linger in her mind.

A familiar voice jarred her from her thoughts. "Glad to see you up, instead of thrashing about in your sleep. You must be Aina, the Echani Bastila requested for this mission. I'm Carth Onasi, if you don't remember."

She glanced aside to see Carth standing by the side of her bed. For reasons she could not explain, Aina did not find his presence the slightest bit reassuring. "Oh...it is you," she said with disdain.

"How are you feeling? You took one hell of a blow to head when our escape pod crashed. Luckily for me, I wasn't seriously hurt."

Aina sat up and looked around, and was instantly dismayed to find that they were presently inhabiting a small, dingy apartment room. One of the lights above flickered on and off, which did nothing to help her headache, and there was a foul scent in the air, a mixture of grease, sweat, and several other unidentifiable odours. Near the bed was a pair of windows which, like everything else in the room, were covered in a thick layer of dirt and grime, yet were clear enough for her to make out the towering skyscrapers of Taris.

"I am fine, if you must know. Where are we?" she asked, rubbing her temples. "Do I even want to know?"

"We're in abandoned apartment on the planet of Taris. After we crashed, I managed to drag you away in all the confusion, and if we're lucky, no one will come looking for us here."

"And what of the battle? Of the Republic fleet?"

A pained look came over Carth's face. "It was less of a battle and more of a massacre. Some of our ships managed to jump to hyperspace when the battle turned against us, but most of them were destroyed. The wreckage has been raining down on the planet for the past couple of days now."

"Lovely," she muttered, standing up. "Any more ill tidings I should be aware of?"

As it turns out, there were. "With the Republic fleet gone, the Sith have completely taken over the planet. They've imposed martial law and set up planet-wide blockade. No one's getting on or off Taris, I'm afraid."

"I should never have left Eshan..." She had not signed on with the Republic just to be wind up on some backwater planet, to put it mildly. Instead, she had anticipated fighting alongside brave and noble warriors against the Sith, her mind filled with words like "honour" and "glory." Perhaps she had been naïve to expect her service with the Republic to fulfil those kinds of expectations.

"So what are we to do now? Sit here until the Sith come for us?"

"No, of course not. The Sith won't be looking for us, anyway; it's Bastila they're after. Which means we have to find her first."

"And why is it so important to find this one Jedi?"

Carth stared at her with an incredulous look on his face. "Bastila isn't an ordinary Jedi, Aina. She's one of the few Jedi – the _only_ Jedi, as far as I know – who can perform what's called 'Battle Meditation.' Through the Force, Bastila can inspire her allies to fight longer and harder, or make her enemies lose morale and the will to fight. And as a soldier, I can tell you that this alone is far more important to any sort of strategy or tactics some general might think up. That's why Bastila is the key to the whole Republic war effort."

"Is she now? Perhaps you have not noticed, Onasi, but our fleet was just routed. Some help she was."

Her derisive tone was clearly beginning to annoy him. "Look, from what I understand of her ability, it requires a great deal of concentration on her part. Since we were ambushed, Bastila didn't have a chance to use her Battle Meditation. Like us, she was too busy trying to get to the escape pods."

Aina was still not convinced that Bastila and this "Battle Meditation" of hers would help them win the war, but she had no desire to argue this point with Carth. "And so we must find this woman, then?"

"What other choice do we have? But we have to be smart about things; I mean, it won't do Bastila any good if we go and do something stupid and get ourselves killed. And I think the first we should do is to look into the reports I've been hearing about escape pods crashing down into the Undercity."

"'Undercity?' I do not know this word."

"This city covers the entire surface of Taris," Carth explained. "Over time, it gets built up, layer by layer. The topmost layer, the Upper City, is where the rich people live, and it's about as safe as you'd expect. Below that is the Lower City, which is little more than a slum overrun by swoop bike gangs and criminals. Beneath that is the Undercity, and believe me when I say that I've heard absolutely nothing good about the place."

Aina sighed. "I think we are chasing a fool's errand, but it would seem that I have little choice in the matter. We should be off then; we will accomplish little by dallying here."

"Good idea. We can use this apartment as a hideout while we're looking for Bastila. We should try to keep a low profile, though a seven-foot-tall Echani like you is going to get noticed no matter what you do. With any luck the Sith will think you're just another off-worlder who get stuck here because of their blockade. Which you are, I guess."

"Before we set out, there are things I would ask you," she said. "I was told little of whom would we face when I joined the Republic, other than that they were Sith. I wish to know more about their leader, this Darth Irenaceus."

Carth raised an eyebrow. "Irenaceus? I'm surprised you haven't heard of him. Well, everything I know is pretty much common knowledge. Before he became a Sith, he was a stage actor named Merdinus Deculo."

Aina glared at him. "An _actor?_ The man who commands the Sith is an _actor?"_

"Hard to believe, I know. He had a reputation for being the worst actor in the galaxy, to the point where people would come to his performances just to laugh at him. It was that whole 'so bad, it's good' sort of thing. Somewhere along the line his Force sensitivity was discovered, and he was sent to one of the Jedi enclaves for training."

"I thought the Jedi did not train adults."

"Usually they don't, but the Mandalorian Wars were raging and the Jedi were still licking their wounds from the Exar Kun War, so I guess they were desperate to bolster their numbers. I don't know the circumstances, exactly, but somehow he fell to the dark side, killed his master, and fled into parts unknown. A few years later, he returns at the head of a Sith fleet, proclaiming himself to be the apprentice of one 'Darth Revan' and declaring his intent to conquer the galaxy."

Aina snorted in disgust. "'Revan'? What sort of name is _that?"_

"I'm, uh, not sure I follow."

"In the language of my people, 'Revan' is a form of a rather vulgar word referring to a woman's...intimate parts."

"I see...well...I'm pretty sure Revan wasn't an Echani...at least as far as we know. I'm afraid we don't know anything about the man...or woman; we don't even know which Revan was. Some even say he was Jedi Exile returned."

This, of course, only made for further confusion. "I am afraid I am not as well-informed of recent events as I ought to be. Who is the 'Jedi Exile'?"

"Bastila would be able to tell you more when we find her, but the Exile was a Jedi named Kiven, and from the stories I've heard, he had a command of the Force that was beyond anything the Jedi Council had ever seen before. They said using the Force came as naturally to him as breathing. But he was wilful and headstrong, and against the wishes of the Council he led some of his fellow Jedi and some Republic soldiers into battle against the Mandalorians. When he encountered one of their fleets at the Malachor system, somehow he made the star in that system go supernova. The explosion completely annihilated the Mandalorian fleet, and pulverised every planet in the system. That was the turning point in the war, and if you ask me, the man deserves a medal for what he did. But the Jedi Council didn't see it that way, and when Kiven returned, they stripped him of his rank, and exiled him to the Outer Rim." Carth began walking towards the door, a sign that he was becoming impatient. "You know, I'm surprised that you haven't heard about all this. I would have thought that you'd have at least heard of Kiven, since he used to be the lead singer of the band Blacksaber."

The sheer absurdity of it all was too much for Aina to bear. "Actors and musicians! Are the Jedi warriors or entertainers?"

"I'm sure their occupations are merely a coincidence. And we've wasted enough time talking; we should get going."

"Agreed."

The hall outside was in little better shape than the rest of the apartment, being dingy, poorly lit, and thoroughly grimy. In several places the walls were pockmarked with scorch marks from blaster fire, leaving them no doubt that this place saw a great deal of violence. A number of aliens roamed the halls, mostly Quarrens and Twi'leks, with not a single human to be seen. Some of them turned to look at the strange sight of a seven-foot-tall Echani walking amongst them, but most acted as if she and Carth did not exist.

"There is something else I wish to ask you," she said, following a long period of silence between them. "When our escape pod was falling to the surface, you said 'There goes number thirty-seven'. What did you mean by this?"

Carth let out a chuckle. "Oh, nothing. It's just that I've served on a total of thirty-seven ships during my career with the Republic, and every single one of them ended up being destroyed."

Aina stopped in her tracks. "Was that an attempt at humour?"

"No, I was being serious. It's just my bad luck that every ship I've ever set foot on ended up exploding or crashing, or some combination of the two. I don't know why, and I'd rather not dwell on that fact."

"Then remind me never to get on board another ship with you."

_A former actor as a Sith...__a Jedi Exile who was once a singer...__a Republic soldier who has experienced the destruction of eve__ry vessel he has set foot on...is there no end to th__is madness__?_

After following the poorly-lit hallway for some distance, they at last reached an elevator that looked every bit as filthy and dilapidated as the rest of the apartment complex. A series of buttons near the door would (presumably) allow one to select the floor one wished to go, although they were presently covered in a thick, unidentifiable substance. Carth reached into his pocket and took out a pair of gloves, donning them before hitting the button to take them to the highest level.

"Since you've been asking me so many questions," said Carth as the elevator ascended, "it's only fair that I ask you some of my own."

"And what do you wish to know of me? There is very little to tell, I'm afraid."

A noticeable tinge of hostility began creeping into Carth's voice. "I'm just curious as to how a woman like you wound up on the _Endar Spire."_

"The Echani serve in many places in the Republic. Surely my posting to that ship is not unusual?"

"No, I just want to know your story, that's all."

She sighed. "Very well. I am from the Silver Mountain monastery on Eshan, where I studied the art of the blade under Venla Sarissa, the Grandmaster of the Most Noble Order of the Heart of Winter. Representatives of the Republic often visit such monasteries in such of recruits, and it so happens that I was one of the warriors chosen."

This, evidently, was not enough to satisfy his curiosity. "See, the thing I don't understand is why the Jedi specifically requested your presence on the _Endar Spire."_

"And why would that be unusual? The Jedi are warriors; surely they would have realised that any Echani would be valuable addition to the crew."

"Maybe...maybe...but I still find it odd that the one person the Jedi wanted on that ship just happens to survive, out of the hundreds that served on the _Endar Spire._ "

Aina growled in frustration. "You obviously wish to accuse me of something. If that is the case, then say it!"

"I know this is probably nothing, and I'm not saying you had anything to do with the crash, but you have to admit, you're presence here seems a little convenient." By now the hostility in his voice was obvious, and it was clear to her that he was expecting her to stab him in the back at any moment.

She had to restrain herself from hitting him. "I do not have to admit anything to you! If you do not trust me, then you are welcome to search for Bastila on your own!"

Her anger was enough to take Carth aback. "Look, I'm just not a trusting person at the best of times, all right? I learned a long time ago not take anything people say at face value, and I hate surprises. I _really_ hate surprises. Even surprise parties on my birthday upset me. So if it's all the same to you, I'd rather we just get back to the task at hand."

"Yes, let's do that."

Mercifully, the elevator doors opened, sparing the two of them from an awkward silence. Or at least such a silence would be awkward to Carth; Aina was perfectly content with him keeping his mouth shut for the rest of the mission.

Though she would never admit, she was shocked when she cast her first glance upon the city of Taris. Never had she seen so many people gathered in one place, swarming over the streets and walkways like insects. An endless array of skyscrapers stretched out to the horizon in every direction, and they stood so high above the ground that Aina could not see down to their foundations. It was early in the evening, and yet the sun was already obscured by the rows upon rows of buildings. From what she had heard, this city covered the entire surface of the planet, making her wonder how the people here managed to grow any food. Surely the Tarisians had not been so stupidly short-sighted as to build over all their arable land, had they?

Even worse was the horrible noise. The roar of speeders overhead mixed together was the dull noise of the crowds to create an auditory miasma that was as suffocating as it was inescapable. How did these people endure it without going mad?

The Sith were already making their presence felt, as a large number of them were patrolling the streets. With any luck, they would not stop to ask about the seven-foot-tall Echani walking among them.

"So...any idea where we would find a lift to the lower city?" Aina asked. "It is a wonder anyone can find anything in this place."

"Well, I don't see a lift anywhere, but I do see a cantina over there," said Carth, looking off into the distance. "Maybe we can ask around there?"

Aina wasn't buying it. "A cantina? Is this an excuse for you to drink?"

"No, of course not! Well, yes it is, but drink has a way of loosening tongues. Don't tell me the Echani don't enjoy a good quaff now and then."

"Echani liquor would go through you like shattered glass. If so much as a single drop passed your lips, you would be unable to stand."

Carth gave her a puzzled look. "I can't even tell if you're being serious or not. Let's just go."

Reaching the cantina involved walking across long, narrow bridge, giving Aina the opportunity to look over the edge and see just how far they were above to the ground. Below she could make out endless lines of vehicles threading their way between the buildings, but the ground itself was so far down that it was obscured in darkness. A sudden thought struck her: if someone were to fall over the railing, how long would it take before they hit the ground?

The inside of the cantina was dark, smoky, and filled with a combination of yet more odours that Aina could not identify. A large rectangular table stood in the antechamber, and at present several people were huddled closely around it, evidently fascinated by whatever it was that was going on. A few people glanced up at the enormous Echani who had just wandered into the cantina, but they quickly turned their gaze back to the table.

"What on that table could possibly be so interesting...?" she wondered aloud.

Carth stared at her, incredulous. "Are you telling me you've never heard of pazaak?"

"No, I have not."

This appeared to exasperate him. "Do you ever do anything, you know, for fun? Surely you must have had some sort of entertainment back at the monastery of yours."

"Testing ourselves against each other in single-combat was our primary 'diversion', if you must know."

"You mean, you fought each other...for fun?"

"Is that so unusual?"

"No, it just strikes me as...odd...that's all."

_And this one thinks himself a warrior?_ Aina thought. "How else could one know another, if not through combat? Words may deceive; it is only through battle that one's heart may be seen clearly. It is how we know each other, and how we court our mates."

That revelation stopped Carth in his tracks. "Wait, are you telling me Echani find their spouses by fighting each other?"

"That is how things are done on Eshan."

"Well, uh, remind me never to date an Echani woman, then."

Aina scowled at him. "If an Echani woman desired you, she would have you. There would be no 'dating'."

"If you're trying to be funny, I'm not laughing. Maybe this is some form of Echani humour that I don't get."

"Tell a joke to an Wookiee," she began, "and he will not understand it. Tell a joke to a Bothan, and he will understand it, but not show it. Tell a joke to a Bith, and he will understand it in his own way. But tell a joke to an Echani, and she will tell that she knows three versions of that joke that are _much better._"

Past the antechamber was the cantina proper, consisting of a circular counter in the centre, where a handful of bartenders were serving Tarisian ale to people who were already clearly intoxicated. A few people were lying passed out drunk on the floor, though no one was paying any attention to them, looking down only to avoid tripping on their bodies. To Aina's right was a small stage, currently occupied by a pair of Bith musicians were playing some dreadfully discordant music. As if that weren't terrible enough, they had pair of Twi'lek dancers gyrating and undulating on stage, with each one wearing an outfit that would outrage anyone with even the most liberal standards of modesty. The whole cantina looked, to Aina's eyes, to be a place where the very worst sorts of debauchery took place, and already she was regretting coming here.

But then, something caught her eye. In another room off to the side, she caught sight of a large holographic display, which showed two people about to engage in a battle with vibroblades, with the fight taking place in an arena of sorts. A great many people were crowded around the display, and eagerly making wagers on the outcome of the contest.

"What is this?" she asked.

"You mean the duelling pit? There's probably one in every cantina on Taris. Usually the people that go to them are bored rich folk looking for some excitement in their lives."

_Perhaps I may have misjudged these people somewhat,_ she thought. Though how a people as decadent as the Tarisians could fight well was beyond her.

She approached the holographic display, pushing people aside in order to get a better view of the duel. It took place in a large, circular arena that was covered in blast marks and scorches, and was surrounded by several tiers of seats that were filled with spectators. Curiously, there was nothing in place to protect anyone in the audience from any stray blaster shots.

A deep, resounding voice came thundering from all around, drowning out the noise of the crowd. _"Ladies and gentle__men, welcome...to the arena! Here today, fighting for your enjoyment, are some of the __finest, most accomplished, most bloodthirsty __duellists here on Taris! __And they would like nothing better to show you their fury and might in the duelling pit! __I'm Kaifus Laan, here to provide you with a blow-by-blow commentary __for today's match-up__."_

Another voice chimed in. "_And I'm Eman Raikonen, providing colour commentary."_

_ "Our first combatant __this evening__ is a man you all know and love...a man who was once a special forces operative for the Republic, but then went renegade to become a bounty hunter. He's killed more people than he has hairs on his head, and his __mere__ presence on the battlefield has been declared a war crime...__I give you...The Commander!"_

The crowd roared in approval, and the holographic display cut a shot of a brutally-scarred man, wearing an equally-scarred set of black armour. "I'm the Commander, and this is my favourite duelling pit on Taris!"

_"...and we'd like to remind you all that the Commander _in no way_ received any sort of financial compensation for making that statement! So what can you tell me about the Commander, Eman?"_

_ "Nothing the audience doesn't know already, Kaifus, but for the benefit of any off-worlders in the crowd, the Commander is looking to add a twenty-fifth win to his streak! All he needs is three more wins in the pit to break Talmi Sotta's record."_

_ "Hopefully, the Commander's winning streak won't be broken in quite such a destructive way as Talmi's. My recollection of that match is a bit hazy, but I believe that around three quarters of the planet's surface was destroyed."_

_ "I don't know, Kaifus, it's going to take one hell of a fighter to take down the Commander. In all the duels we've witnessed over the years, I've never seen someone who can handle a blaster like he can. __I__t's like he was__ born with it in his hands."_

The camera cut to the Commander's opponent, a younger man with unkempt black hair wielding a vibroblade. He wore a thoroughly stupid-looking visor over his eyes, the purpose of which Aina could only guess at. _"And facing the Commander in the pit is a rising star in the __Taris __duelling scene...and __the one fighter__ you all love to hate...the Coruscant Kid!"_

This, predictably, elicited a chorus of boos and jeers from the crowd. _"You know, Kaifus, you gotta admire the Kid's guts coming to the __p__it, because he's got a whopper of a bounty on his head. Turns out he got caught sleeping with some Hutt gangster's sister. And that retching sound you just heard? That was you."_

_ "Thank for you providing way more information than the audience ever wanted __to know__, Eman! __And it looks like once again the Coruscant Kid is bringing a knife to a gunfight. How do you think he'll fare against a master of the blaster like the Commander?"_

_ "__Personally? I think this is going to go down as one of the shortest duels in history. __I've seen the Commander take down Mandalorians in less than five seconds. What chance does the Kid have? His only hope will be to close the distance between himself and his opponent so he can bring his vibroblade into play."_

A loud chime sounded, and the crowd grew silent as the battle began. Aina expected the two to open up on each other instantly, but instead the Commander and the Coruscant Kid began circling each other, volleying insults back and forth.

"Time to finish writing the final chapter of your story, old man!" the Kid snarled. "Here's a clue: it ends with _you losing!"_

The Commander responded with a disgusted snort. "Keep talking, whelp. I crush punks you like you on the way to _real_ opponents."

"I've been watching you, and you've been getting slow. In a short while you'll be flat on your back, completely at my mercy."

"I said the same thing to your mother last night."

_"Oh, ho! It looks like you forget to mention, Eman, that the Commander is the undisputed master of the _ice burn!"

While all this was happening, Aina was growing impatient. "Why do they waste time slinging childish insults at one another?" she said to no one in particular. "The sole proof of their mettle is in the fighting!"

As soon as she finished speak, the Commander unleashed a flurry of blaster fire on his opponent. The Kid made no motion to evade, nor was such action necessary, because all of the Commander's shots were absorbed by a shimmering blue field of energy that instantly surrounded the Kid's body.

_A personal energy shield,_ Aina thought. _A wise precaution._ Every Echani was intimately familiar with such devices, though the device the Kid was using was surely some inferior knock-off of the genuine Echani article.

The Commander ceased fire for a second. "Wonder how many shots it takes to burn that thing out?"

He did not receive an answer, as the Kid charged at him. The Commander fired off several more blaster shots, all of which hit their mark, to no effect. He drew his own vibroblade just in time to defend himself against a swift overhead strike from the Kid, whom immediately followed up with several more quick attacks.

_"The fights are always more interesting when they switch to melee weapons, isn't that right, Eman?"_

_ "Sure is, Kaifus! Such a shame that those bleeding-heart __socialists__ got that stupid law passed forbidding death matches. We could have seen some heads rolling, or at the very least a good old fashioned eye-gouging."_

_ "Oh no, don't you go bringing politics into this again. If people want to hear a political debate, they can watch the government broadcasts."_

_ "Which is why I saw we ought to combine the Tarisian government with death matches in the duelling pit! People would be a lot more interested in political issues if they knew that our members of parliament could wind up _dis_membered!"_

It was clear in Aina's eyes that the Kid was outmatched. His fighting style, to the untrained observer, seemed to be fluid and graceful, imitative of the Echani style (in fact, she recognised several forms and stances that she herself had been taught). But while the kid understood the _appearance_ of the forms, he did not understand the _art,_ and _that _would be his downfall. He did not comprehend why a certain form or stance was used, and instead choose them based solely on how flashy they looked.

The Commander, on the other hand, had never had any sort of formal training; that much was obvious from his brutish, inelegant manner of fighting. But what he lacked in finesse, he made up for in sheer strength and will. It was not long before he had the Kid on the defensive, backing him up against the wall of the arena.

_"It looks like the Commander is __about to claim his twenty fifth victory, Kaifus, unless the Kid has some other trick up his sleeve. You can see the desperation in his eyes! Now, if death matches were still allowed, we'd be treated to the sight of the Commander decapitating his opponent and presenting his head to the audience. But _noooooo..._some __stupid people just__ had to go and get death matches banned! And I think we both know who's to blame for that...the voters!"_

_ "There you go again, bringing politics into things..."_

And then the crowd saw something truly unexpected. The Kid swung his blade in a wide arc, and at the same time the Commander launched a heavy left hook with his fist..._directly into the path of the Kid's vibroblade._ But instead of cutting off the Commander's hand, the Kid's blade split in two from the sheer force of the blow. A split-second later, the Commander slammed his other fist directly into the Kid's groin with an impact that was palpable. At that exact moment, every man in the audience simultaneously winced and crossed his legs. The exceedingly-unfortunate Coruscant Kid slowly collapsed to the ground, letting out a high-pitched wail all the while. He remained in the floor in the foetal position, not moving.

"_Oooooohhhhh! I bet the Kid's grandchildren felt _that_ one!"_

_ "__Ha! I don't think children are in the cards after taking a hit like that!"_

_ "Well, there you have it folks! __Be sure to tune __two hours from now__, where we'll find out if the Commander can continue his winning streak! We'll also be featuring th__at__ perennial crowd-pleasing event...the WALL of DEATH!"_

_ "...and I'd like to point that the name 'Wall of Death' is merely figurative, and does not suggest any possibility of the loss of life. Bloody socialists..."_

At that instant, Aina knew what she had to do. She whirled around to face Carth. "I am going to fight this 'Commander' in the duelling ring."

He laughed. "And now who's the one who wants to play when there's work to be done?"

"This is not 'play', Carth. These people must be made to see the true grace and beauty of the Echani style. And I am sure there is to be some sort of financial compensation for victory, something that will prove useful during our mission."

"I don't know," he said teasingly, crossing his arms. "It sounds like you're just looking for an excuse to fight someone."

"Believe what you will, but I _am_ going to fight in that arena."

Carth saw the futility of arguing this with her. "Well, while you're making arrangements, I'll go chat up the locals and see if I can find anything out."

"Yes, win them over with your endlessly abundant charisma," she said in a completely deadpan tone of voice.

After inquiring around the cantina, Aina discovered that the duel organiser was a Hutt named Ajuur. She was familiar with the reputation of this particular species, but that did nothing to prepare her for the sheer repulsiveness of seeing one up close. The Hutt let out a belch of surprise when he saw an Echani standing before him.

"No need to say why you are here," said Ajuur. "An Echani can only be here for one thing: she wishes to fight in the duelling pit."

"You guess correctly," she replied, trying stay as far from the Hutt should any spittle get flung her way. "I wish to challenge the one they call the 'Commander'."

The Hutt laughed, a sound so deep and guttural that Aina could feel it in her bones. "I would expect no less from an Echani! But the Commander has never lost a match in the ring, and has an unbroken streak of twenty-five wins to his name. Are you sure you don't want to fight a lower-ranked opponent?"

Predictably, she did not take this well. "I will not stand here and be insulted! Either arrange the match, or I shall leave."

Ajuur let out a noise that sounded halfway between a laugh and a bad case of indigestion. "I forgot how prickly you Echani can be. Return here in two hours, and we will see you about slotting you in for a match. New blood is good! With the Sith blockade, we haven't been able to get any new fighters from off-world. People are tired of seeing the same fighters over and over."

"Surely a planet with this population would have endless numbers of people willing to prove themselves in combat?"

"Ha! Most of the combatants are off-worlders. The people of Taris like to watch fights, but they don't actually fight themselves."

And with that remark, any respect Aina held for the Tarisians instantly evaporated, and she doubted very much that there was anything they could do to rectify this. She imagined that they must be the sort of people who would stand by and watch two sides fight in a battle, not caring which one prevailed, and then promptly loot the bodies of the dead when it was over.

"Very well, I shall return later."

After spending half a minute or so looking for Carth, Aina found him talking to a pair of rather attractive women by the counter, and she immediately rolled her eyes at this turn of events. No doubt he was seeking to impress them, most likely by grossly exaggerating his exploits as a soldier for the Republic.

By this point, Aina wanted nothing more than to be out of this cantina. The awful music was giving her a headache, the air was stifling, and she was acutely aware that several people were staring at her. Was a seven-foot-tall woman really that much of a strange sight in the galaxy? On Eshan, people of her stature were certainly not uncommon, but as Aina was quickly learning, many things in the galaxy were quite different from how things were on her homeworld.

For the next several minutes Aina stood alone outside the cantina entrance, waiting for Carth to finish making inquiries with the locals (or simply flirting with the female patrons, which she was assumed was the more likely possibility). People turned to look at her as they headed inside and, assuming that she was a bouncer, made remarks that this place had to be _really_ tough if they were hiring giant Echani warriors for security.

"So, did you learn anything, or were you simply attempting to win the hearts and minds of the female patrons?" she asked when Carth returned.

Carth, evidently, was not in the mood for an upbraiding. "Why must everything you say to me sound like complaining? You're just as bad as Bastila."

"Answer my question!"

"Well, I actually got to chatting with some off-duty Sith soldiers. They've been sending huge numbers of soldiers down into the Lower City and Undercity trying to find crashed Republic escape pods. From what I've heard they've haven't managed to find Bastila yet, which is the first bit of good news I've heard since we landed. I also managed to find out where we can find a lift down to the Lower City; fortunately for us, it's not far from here."

"You spoke with the Sith? Risky."

"Most of them want to get off this planet as much as we do. It's easy to think that the Sith are nothing but monsters, but a lot of them are just misguided young people who think they're signing up for some grand adventure across the galaxy. Turns out being a Sith isn't as glamorous as they thought, especially if you're not one of the Force-sensitive ones."

"I doubt there is very much that is 'glamorous' about them, either. Those who follow the dark side must ultimately destroy themselves. It is the way of things."

"Now you're definitely starting to sound like Bastila. I hate to think what will happen when you actually meet her."

Precisely two hours later, Aina returned to the cantina for her match with the Commander. Carth dared not say it, but a part of him was hoping that she would be soundly defeated in the duelling ring. Her arrogance and haughtiness had done nothing but rub him the wrong way since they'd met, and he wanted to see her taken down a peg.

"Before you go into the duelling pit," Ajuur began, "you must know the rules. First, any weapons are permitted, but no grenades or explosives. Second, the match is over when one of the fighters is unconscious or unable to continue the match. Death matches are forbidden now; your opponent goes down, you _don't_ finish him off, no matter how much you want to. Understand?"

"Wait," said Carth, "you said that people can use whatever weapons they want, and nobody dies. How is _that_ supposed to work?"

"The ring has an energy suppression field. Weapons are limited so they hurt, but don't kill. We also have medical droids on hand to patch up any wounds or reattach severed limbs."

She tightened her grip on her vibroblade. "Very well, then let us be on with it."

"One more thing, Echani!" said the Hutt. "If you want to fight in the arena, you must choose a name for yourself. A good name draws people in, makes them bet more. Something like 'The Bloody Hand' or 'Blazhnoth Corpsegrinder' or 'Deathgore Decapitation Kilmister Bloodlust, Who Goes From Victory to Victory, Leaving Only Shredded Entrails, Shattered Spines, and Weeping Widows in His Wake as His Hellish and Insatiable Wrath Consumes All in an Endless Tide of Blood and Gore That Grinds All Who Oppose Him into an Exceedingly Fine Grist'."

"Why do I get the feeling these people _really_ miss having death matches?" Carth remarked.

"But what would be a good name for you?" the Hutt continued. "Let's see...you are Echani...you are dressed in white...ha! You shall be..._The White Death!"_

"Fine. May we begin now?"

"One more thing. You receive a 10% cut of all bets placed on the match. But you should know that most people will be betting against you. The Commander is a crowd favourite."

"It will be their loss, then."

* * *

_"__Ladies and gentle__men, welcome...to the arena! __Today we have a very special presentation in store for you...a match featuring a combatant never before seen on the Taris duelling scene! I give you...the WHITE DEATH!"_

A series of spotlights shone down on Aina, temporarily blinding her. She could feel the stares of hundreds of people bearing down on her, a feeling that was not entirely unfamiliar to her. But unlike her comrades at the Silver Mountain monastery, the people watching her were only here to be entertained.

_"I tell you, Kaifus, it's a rare pleasure to have an Echani here in the duelling pit, because they always put on a great show."_

_ "And facing the White Death is a man who needs no introduction...__it's the master of the blaster...the terror of Taris...the Commander!"_

The crowd roared in approval when Aina's opponent was illuminated by the spotlight. The Commander waved to the crowd, which made them cheer even harder. "I'm the Commander, and this is my favourite duelling pit on Taris!"

_Not when I'm finished with you,_ Aina thought.

The Commander then turned to stare at her. "Put away your toys and go home, little girl. This duelling pit is for warriors, not fey children."

_"Did I hear that correctly, Eman, or did the Commander just call a seven-foot-tall woman 'little'?"_

_ "He may be a great fighter, but no one ever said he was the fastest hyperdrive in his class, if you know what I mean."_

Aina was not about to dignify his blustering with a response, and simply held her vibroblade in a defensive posture. She knew that he was moments away from unleashing a flurry of blaster fire upon her, and she would have to find a way to close the gap between without getting shot.

The Commander continued with taunts. "I've fought Wookiees and Mandalorians in this duelling pit, little girl, and crushed them beneath my heel. Can you say the same?"

Once again she offered no reply, wishing this brute would shut up and draw his weapon. _"It looks like the White Death is the strong, silent type, __Kaifus. Either that, or the Commander's barbs have utterly shattered her self-esteem."_

_ "__I think this is downright sacrilegious, Eman. Trading insults with one's opponent is a Taris duelling tradition that goes back centuries!"_

Since the Commander evidently preferred talk over action, Aina acted first. She raised her vibroblade and sprinted towards him, and predictably he drew his blaster and opened fire. Normally she would have possessed a personal energy shield, but she was lacking that particular item at the moment. Instead she swung her vibroblade into the path of the incoming blaster bolts, the cortosis weave causing them to deflect harmlessly. For an instant she felt as if the blade were moving on its own, turning aside every shot the Commander sent her way. A chorus of surprised gasps rose up from the crowd, but she did not hear it. All she was focussed on was cutting the Commander down.

He drew his own blade in anticipation, and their two weapons collided with such a terrible noise that the crowd fell silent. Aina followed up her attack with several more swift blows, knowing full well that she had to keep the Commander on the defensive. It was obvious that he was the stronger of the two physically, and it was entirely probable that he could cut through her defensive stance through sheer brute strength.

_"Look at that, Eman! The White Death turned aside the Commander's shots with her blade! __In all my years as announcer for this duelling pit I've never seen anything like that!"_

_ "Too bad the Commander is as deadly with a vibroblade as he is with a blaster. Do you remember that one match years ago, back when we still had death matches, when the Commander faced that Rodian? He gave him three swift blows that were so hard and fast it looked as if his sword just passed right through his body, and a second later that Rodian literally fell to pieces before him! And then the Commander threw his body parts into the crowd, and they practically fell over each trying to pick them up! Ahh...those were the days! These people who came to the duelling scene after the death match ban...they don't know what they missed!"_

After being forced on the defensive, the Commander retaliated with a swift stroke aimed squarely at her head. She saw it coming and ducked his attack, answering him with quick slash that the Commander was almost, but quite able to avoid. Her blade cut a gash in his neck, certainly not enough to end the fight, but enough to cause the Commander some pain. He let out a few choice curse words, alluding to the questionable parentage of all Echani, before attacking her with renewed vigour.

By this point, Aina had seen enough of the Commander's fighting style to understand entirely the sort of man he was. He clearly delighted in the suffering of others, as evidenced by the way every one of his attacks was made with the intent of causing the bloodiest possible results. He had learned to fight with a blaster first, a blade second, and that only reason he even bother learning to use a blade was because it produced messier kills than a blaster. He loved fighting, but not because he sought honour or glory, but only because he wanted bloodshed.

The Commander was a Mandalorian in all but name.

Noting his extreme aggression, Aina thrust her vibroblade squarely at his chest, a move that would have looked extremely foolish to anyone watching the fight. All her opponent would have to do is slap her blade aside with a parry and she would be left wide open...which is exactly what she wanted the Commander to think.

He took the bait and attempt to parry her thrust, but just before their blades met she pulled her weapon away so that he met no resistance. He swung his blade too far, leaving him wide open for Aina's counter-attack. She whirled her blade around and brought it down with forceful blow that would have cut the Commander in half, but in the presence of the duelling ring's energy all that happened was that the Commander was knocked back.

_"That's two blows the White Death has landed on the Commander, and he hasn't made so much as a scratch on her! Could the White Death __be for real? Is the Commander about to lose his winning streak?"_

The Commander was used to achieving victory quickly in the ring, and that he could not so easily triumph over her was enough to drive him into a rage. This was both a danger and an advantage, because in his anger he was more likely to make a mistake, yet in anger there was also strength. Aina doubted she possessed the strength to block or parry his blows, but it was not the Echani to stand there and suffer an opponent's attacks. Instead, she danced and dodged around his vibroblade, lashing out with lightning-quick slashes that were not enough to fell the man, but each one enraged him just a little bit more.

The Commander let out a howl of rage and came at her with a swift overhead blow. Aina had no time to evade, and raised her sword to block the attack. She would not have had the strength to resist it, but the height disparity between them meant that the Commander was unable to gain sufficient leverage to push her vibroblade aside. In response, Aina pushed back, and the two staggered away from each other.

She reached out her hand and beckoned the Commander to attack her. This had the intended effect of making charge at her in a blind fury, and at that instant she saw her moment of victory, when she could use her height to her advantage. As the Commander raced towards her, bellowing some incomprehensible battle cry, she turned to the side and extended her right leg. A half-second later Aina was rewarded with the satisfying feeling of her boot impacting the Commander's face

For a second he seemed to be standing still, but then he slowly fell over backwards and landed on the floor of the duelling pit with a loud _thud. _The crowd, which had remained silent up to that point, suddenly exploded with noise. Some of the people cheered, while others who had bet against Aina howled in anger.

_"It's over! The fight is over! The Commander __has fallen! There's got to be a lot of unhappy betters in the crowd right about now!"_

_ "Well, Kaifus, it looks as though the Commander forgot that Echani are skilled in both armed and unarmed combat. I'm surprised that kick didn't snap his neck! __Let's see that again in slow-motion!__"_

Every holographic viewscreen in the cantina suddenly switched to a replay of the last moments of the battle, showing a slow-motion close-up that allowed the audience to see, in agonising detail, the Commander's face twist and contort as it met Aina's boot.

_"You know, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near __the Commander when he wakes up. He's not known for his steady moods, to put it lightly."_

_ "Indeed! Remember when that reported asked him about one of his victories, and she kept making these snide insinuations that he hadn't won honestly? The Commander just knocked her flat!"_

_ "That wasn't the only time, Eman. Apparently, the Commander __made __a bit of a habit of punching out reporters...at least until they got wise and started carrying stun batons. Gave him quite the shock the next time he tried it...literally!"_

Her opponent defeated, and feeling a great deal of satisfaction at having found a worthy foe, Aina strolled out of the arena. And while there were many disappointed people in the crowd, people who had bet on the Commander winning, there was no one more disappointed than Carth, who was certain that her victory in the duelling ring would only further bolster her already-immense ego.

Ajuur the Hutt was positively delighted with the outcome of the match. "Good fight, Echani! Good fight! Many, many people losing money after betting on the wrong fighter...it always makes me happy! Happy _and_ rich! As I promised, you get 10% of all bets placed. I expect you'll be back here soon, White Death. They always come back..."

"Hmm, let's hope not," said Carth, "otherwise we'll never get off this planet."

Ten percent of all bets placed turned out to be a few thousand credits, though whether that was a great deal of money was lost on her. Having spent most of her life in a monastery, she had little use for money.

"The people here have witnessed the Echani fighting style today," she said as they walked out of the cantina. "May it be a shining moment in their otherwise dull lives."

"I can see why Bastila wanted you on this mission. I don't think I've ever seen someone use a vibroblade like that. If I were to give that kind of weapon to another Republic soldier, he'd probably starting hacking away with it like a meat cleaver."

"Fortunately for us, I am not a soldier."

Her remark made him stop. "And what's that supposed to mean? You fight for the Republic, you're a soldier."

Like so much else, this statement offended her. "I am warrior, not a soldier. A soldier merely does as he is told to by his superiors, whether it is honourable or not, and excuses his atrocities and depravities by saying that he was 'just following orders'. A warrior fights for what she knows to be true and honourable in her heart, and in the end she finds either victory or death."

"That's...one way of looking at it, I guess. But in my experience, 'warriors' are the kind of people who enjoy preying on the weak and helpless, and it falls to soldiers like me to protect them."

"You speak of the Mandalorians," she said, correctly guessing that Carth had fought in that war. "They are mere murderers, not warriors."

"Look, let's just drop this, all right? It's getting late; we should get back to our apartment. I don't want to be on these streets after it gets dark."

Though she hated the thought of waiting until tomorrow to continue their task, the duel with the Commander had left her feeling rather tired and she would welcome rest...though the thought of sleeping in that filthy apartment and having Carth be in the same room made her shudder quietly.


	4. Deeper Down

Chapter 4 – Deeper Down

* * *

"Admiral Karath?"

"Y...yes, Lord Irenaceus?"

"I'm bored."

"I assure you, milord, the search for Bastila is being undertaken with all due haste. But it takes time to search an entire planet."

Irenaceus sighed. "I suppose you're right, Karath. I _hate _it when you're right. You know, if it hadn't been for my idiot apprentice, I would have Bastila on board this ship, and I'd be soiling myself in delight finding new and unusual ways of torturing her."

Karath took a step back. "If I may be so...bold...Lord Irenaceus...why do you let Darth Bandon live, if he has proven unworthy?"

"An astute question, admiral. As I'm sure you know, it is the Sith tradition for the apprentice to slay his master. Naturally, I have no desire to be slain, so I have deliberately chosen an apprentice who has absolutely no chance of killing me. You have to admit, it's quite clever."

"Of course, Lord Irenaceus."

"Now, on to more important matters. Have your sources managed to determine how, exactly, the Jedi Exile managed to make the star of the Malachor system go supernova? This is of paramount importance, because I have yet to destroy a star myself, and I will not allow myself to be upstaged by some Jedi. Believe me, as an actor, being upstaged..._upsets_ me."

"I'm afraid we know nothing about how he accomplished such a feat, milord. Our intelligence has turned up a few scattered references to a 'Mass Shadow Generator', but we have been unable to learn anything more."

Irenaceus threw up his arms in frustration. "Then I suppose we'll just have to find the Exile and make him tell us how he did it, won't we? And then I shall ask him write a sequel to _Across the Stars,_ and torture him if he refuses. Yes, that's exactly what I'll do! And then I'll adapt that to the stage, with myself playing the lead role. Perhaps it shall be an operetta, with the Exile taking on the role of the tenor. _Glorious! _I have heard that he possessed one of the most beautiful voices in the galaxy...such a shame he wasted it on that rubbish music he and his band made...now where was I again? Oh yes, blowing up a sun! I will not consider my life complete I have accomplished such a feat. I mean, there's simply no way one can top that." Irenaceus paused for a moment. "Well, I suppose one could blow up the entire _galaxy_, but that's just crazy."

Over the years of serving Lord Irenaceus, Karath had become quite adept at masking his rage and annoyance at the Sith lord's antics. Restraining himself now taxed this particular skill to the utmost.

"Guess I should make another broadcast to the troops; they're probably feeling as bored as I am. Go get the cam droid."

Karath did as he was ordered, mouthing a string of curses, most of which consisted of a great many terrible things he wished Irenaceus would go do to himself.

The camera droid switched on, and Irenaceus felt a giddy rush at the knowledge that his words were being sent to every ship in the Sith fleet. "Hello and welcome again from the bridge of the _Leviathan._ We have taken control of the planet of Taris, and our search for the Jedi Bastila is under way. Her so-called 'Battle Meditation' may have led the Republic to a few minor victories here and there, but I assure you all that she will _not_ evade us. And once we have her in our clutches, we will make her suffer, oh yes! And I'd like to remind you all that if you have any ideas of your own about what I should do to her, feel free to send them in! The lucky winner will have his chosen method of torture demonstrated on a live broadcast from this ship!"

"But I know what you're all waiting for...the mail sessions! Now normally I only do this once a week, but I'm sure we'll all bored to tears of having to sit around while our troops scour the planet's surface." Irenaceus glanced down at his datapad. "Our first letter comes to us from one Alaundra Neemik, a former Jedi who saw the error of her ways and embraced the dark side." She writes, '_Lord __Irenaceus: __I'm sure we all have our __reasons for turning to the dark side. I'm curious as to what yours was?'"_

"Well, it was actually rather simple, really. When I was a mere Padawan at the Dantooine enclave, one of my closest friends was a fellow named Alek Squinga...Squiga...Segquina...Squiga _something-or-other..._, and one day he tells me in secret about this ancient ruin near the Jedi Enclave. The Jedi Council, being a bunch of useless, know-nothing gits, thought it was a mere burial mound, but Alek had discovered that it was something much, much more. I was reluctant to go crawling in some dark tomb, but for the sake of my friend, I agreed to accompany him. And besides, I thought, he needed something to cheer him up after that horrible accident he'd had when tried to shave his beard with his lightsaber."

"So we go exploring these ruins, and it soon becomes obvious that this place is old...like _really _old. And Alek tells me that he's found some ancient map in the ruins that leads to something he called the 'Star Forge', the nature of which I was completely ignorant of at the time. So to make a long story short, Alek had the misfortune of stepping on a pressure plate that triggered a most curious mechanism that sent a sharpened spike up his...well, I won't get into the specifics of how he died. I'll say that at that exact moment, it felt like my entire universe changed. Finding this 'Star Forge' became my only goal...but before I do that, there was the little matter of getting out of that miserable Jedi academy. That wasn't an issue after I killed my master...the poor fellow completely fell to pieces!" He let out a burst of high-pitched laughter. "See, see? Get it? Because I chopped him into pieces with my lightsaber?"

"Anyhow, I left to search for the Star Forge, and my search led me to Revan, who became my master, and I'm sure you all know _that_ story. And now on to the next letter, which comes to us from someone who goes only by the initial 'K'. _Ooohh_...mysterious! And he...or she...asks, _'What can change the nature of a man?'"_

Irenaceus lowered the datapad and glared into the camera with a look of pure hate. "Oh, this idiot think he's funny, does he? For those of you who don't know, those were the last words my master spoke to me before I cut him down. There is nothing, I repeat, _nothing _I hate more than asinine philosophical questions, especially ones that don't have a yes-or-no answer! I don't know how this joker knows about that, but..." He shot a glance at Karath. "Admiral, find this person and have him killed. _Nobody_ mocks me in front of the troops!"

"It shall be done, milord."

"Now that that bit of unpleasantness is out of the way, on to the next question. This one comes from our academy on Korriban from someone who would prefer to remain nameless. And this person asks, _'At the Sith academy, there's this one girl that I really, really like, but I don't know how to approach her! Any suggestions?'"_

"Ah, love and passion! Two things we Sith permit that the Jedi do not, which probably explains why so many of them defect to our side! But to answer this young man's question, my initial suggestion would be to serenade her with a song proclaiming your undying love for her, though that is probably just the actor in me speaking. Failing that, I would suggest the time-honoured tradition of a candlelit dinner by the fire, or taking her an evening stroll by the beach. Wait...are there any beaches on Korriban? I can't remember. Any of these things is a good prelude to that triumphant moment when you finally get to charge up her loading ramp...and then throw her aside for someone who's better-looking. That's the Sith way!"

"Well, that's all the time we have today. I have every confidence that our men will soon locate the Jedi Bastila, and then our conquest of the galaxy will resume."

Karath switched off the cam droid and ceased the broadcast. This left Irenaceus feeling bored once again, a truly intolerable state. The troops on Taris had better find Bastila quickly, or there was no telling what he would do.

* * *

Having to face waking up some filthy apartment was bad enough, but waking up to the sight of Carth's ugly face made it all the worse. Aina could not look at him without wanting to have someone tie him down and shave that hideous-looking hair from his face. He'd still be ugly, of course, but at least he'd look a little less like some wild animal.

"Enjoy sleeping in, do we?" Carth asked with a smug look on his face. "You know, a Republic soldier would get a chewing out from his superior if he were caught napping like you were."

This was not what she wanted to hear as she climbed out of bed. In fact, _nothing_ Carth seemed to say was ever what she wanted to hear. "Well I am _not_ a Republic soldier, and I sleep as long as I please."

"You know, just out of curiosity, are you always this testy, or is it just a situational thing?"

"I am not here to be your friend, Carth. I am here to battle the Sith, nothing less, and nothing more. Now let us be on with our task; every minute we waste in idle talk is another minute the Sith have to find your Jedi."

Of course, Aina did not want to waste time in setting out for the Lower City, partly because the more time they took, the more likely it would be that Carth would attempt to engage her in conversation, and she was in no mood for that.

"There's something I've been meaning to ask you," he said as they left the apartment, dashing her hopes. "The other day you said that Echani court their spouses by sparring with each other."

"Yes, what of it?"

"See, I keep hearing this rumour everywhere I go...that when Echani spar with one another, they only wear their underwear, or sometimes nothing at all."

Aina bristled. "We are trained to fight without the encumbrance of _armour,_ not without _clothes._ I do not know where this ridiculous idea began, but it is entirely untrue."

"But it _is_ conceivable that it could happen, isn't it? What, during courtship and all."

"Only if someone were particularly brazen in their affections."

The lift down to the Lower City was, not surprisingly, located in at the far end of a long, narrow alleyway that was clearly seldom-travelled by the people of Taris. No one who was respectable went to the Lower City, and anyone coming up from the depths would quickly find himself chased back to the Lower City by the wealthier folk, who didn't appreciate the unwashed rabble disturbing their affluent lives.

A more pressing matter was the Sith soldier guarding the lift, who paced about in a desperate effort to keep himself occupied. "Hold it right there, civilians. Access to Lower City is restricted; I suggest you go back the way you came." The tone of his voice was more one of boredom than hostility, however, and this gave Aina the opportunity she needed.

"We are not going to the Lower City," she said. "We're here to tell you that your comrades are presently in the cantina, drinking themselves into a stupor and mocking you in your absence. They did not desire your presence, so they told you to remain here and guard this lift, even though there is nothing here to guard."

The Sith stepped back. "_What?_ The bastards...I knew they were trying to get rid of me!"

"And if you have any courage in your heart, you will go to the cantina and show them your fury. Go now! Show them that you are a true Sith! Let none stand in your way!"

The Sith drew his blaster rifle. "I'll kill them!" he declared before running off, leaving the lift completely unguarded.

Carth could not help from laughing. "I can't believe that worked! I don't want to think what will happen when actually gets to the cantina, though."

They stepped into the lift, which proceeded at an agonisingly slow pace towards the Lower City. The lift itself was obvious in a poor state of repair, giving its occupants the feeling that it at any moment it might send them plummeting to their doom.

"I am curious, Carth...once we find this Jedi, how do you propose we get off this planet? You mentioned that the Sith have imposed a blockade."

"We'll deal with that when the time comes. No point in getting ahead of ourselves."

"You mean you have no plan whatsoever?"

"In my experience, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. But trust me, I've been in worse spots. The Sith can't possibly cover every single way off Taris."

The lift came to a stop, giving the pair their first glimpse of the Lower City of Taris. It went without saying that it hardly looked like a pleasant place, thought it was not nearly as bad as Aina expected. She was saving her worst expectations for when they reached the Undercity.

Very little light filtered down from above, and it was impossible to tell if it were day or night. The Lower City itself consisted of an endless array of alleys and walkways that threaded their way between the skyscrapers, though after looking over the edge Aina was still unable to see down to the ground. In contrast to the Upper City, there was not a single soul to be seen anywhere, which both of them found distinctively unnerving.

"I've set foot in more than my share of slums," Carth said, "and I can tell you that it's never a good sign when there's no one in the streets. We should be careful. If we ask around we should be find some way down to the Lower City, that is, if people are even willing to talk to us."

"And the place where you would find people would be a cantina, I assume?"

"Like I said, drink loosens tongues. And who knows, maybe we'll find one with a duelling ring."

The general state of the Lower City was very much like their apartment, in that everything they saw was covered in several layers of grime and filth. Piles of rubbish were strewn about, the walls were riddled with holes and scorch marks, and the air was heavy with a foul, oppressive scent that was like a mixture of blood and smoke. But worst of all was the suffocating atmosphere of the place; there was a tension in the air, as if any at moment they might find themselves under attack. Worst of all was the overpowering silence, only broken by the occasional shriek of a swoop bike or speeder passing by. One could easily be forgiven for thinking that the entire Lower City was abandoned.

As luck would have it, they did indeed find a cantina not far from where they were. Two Rodian bouncers, packing enough firepower to level an entire city block, flanked the entrance, letting them know in no uncertain terms that this was one tough bar.

Inside, the cantina was even worse than the one in the Upper City, to the point where Aina felt dirtied merely by being in it. What struck her, however, is the large number of aliens present, to the point where they easily outnumbered the humans. She felt a distinct sense of unease being around them, and though she would never admit it, it was difficult to shed the perception that they were somehow lesser beings...a perception that was not helped in the slightest by their hideous appearance (which made Carth look positively handsome by comparison). Few aliens ever came to Aina's homeworld, and she had seen next to none during her time aboard the _Endar Spire._

Though the cantina was crowded, she noticed that the patrons had all moved towards the walls, leaving a large open space in the middle. The reason for this soon became apparent – a trio of thugs had got themselves into a confrontation with what had to be the strangest man Aina had ever seen. He was short, so short that he would have barely made it past her waist, and his eyes were concealed beneath a pair of goggles, the purpose of which she could only guess at. There was no emotion on his face at all, and he was clearly not threatened by the three men pointing blasters in his direction.

"Go away," he snarled.

"Hey, don't be like that!" said one of the thugs, a Twi'lek. "We just wanted to meet the famous bounty hunter Calo Nord!"

Another thug, a Rodian, was less than impressed. "This can't be him! He looks like a Kowakian monkey-lizard!"

The third, a Nikto, disagreed. "Of course it's him! Look at those stupid goggles he's got on! They do nothing!"

"You've got the wrong guy," said the little man. "I'm just the janitor."

The Twi'lek took a step back. "The...janitor?"

"Yeah, got a real mess to clean up here...three bodies."

"What the fr-"

Almost faster than one could blink, he drew a pair of blasters and gunned down his three assailants before they could get even one shot off. After reducing them to a trio of smoking corpses, the diminutive man holstered his weapons and walked away, completely unperturbed by the encounter. The cantina patrons parted before him, with no one so much as looking him in the eye. The instant he was out the door they began carrying on as they had before, not even paying any attention to the three dead bodies lying on the floor.

Aina turned to face Carth. "That dwarf just killed three people, and those here do not even care. What sort of place is this?"

Before he could answer, they were approached by a young blue-skinned Twi'lek girl, who looked upon the three dead bodies with an awestruck expression. "Did you see that? That was Calo Nord, the most famous bounty hunter in the galaxy!"

"Hmm, a Twi'lek who speaks Basic," Carth remarked.

"That's not so strange, at least here in the Lower City. But I figured you two weren't from around here the moment you walked in. You look like you're up to something important."

Aina tried to guess the girl's age, but in her ignorance of the Twi'lek race, she could only place her in the early teens. "And who are you, exactly?"

"I'm Mission Vao, and..." She paused, straining her neck to look up at Aina. "Wow, you're huge! You're as big as Big Z!"

"And who is 'Big Z'?"

She gestured towards a Wookiee seated at a nearby table, who was busy stuffing food into his mouth. "That's what I call my friend Zaalbar."

"And you may call me Aina Kaamos. This is Carth." She was about to add "the slow-witted, dull one," to his name, but decided against it.

Carth found the pairing of a Twi'lek street urchin and a Wookiee rather unbelievable. "How does a kid wind up with a Wookiee as her companion?"

"Hey, who you calling a 'kid'?" she snapped. "Anyway, it's kind of a long story. Some thugs tried to pick a fight with Big Z, and I just couldn't stand by and let them hurt him. Guess it was a pretty dumb thing to do, because one of them hit me so hard it knocked me out cold. I suppose Big Z didn't really need me help, cause he just picked those thugs up and threw them away like they were garbage! After that me and Zaalbar figured we'd better off sticking together. Turns that he..." She went silent, and began looking about frantically. "Are they playing Blacksaber? Oh _yes!_"

"The Singing Jedi's band," Aina muttered, not enjoying being reminded of how the Jedi Order looked to be scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to recruits. She was at the point where it would not have surprised her in the slightest if it turned out that Bastila enjoyed writing romance novels in her spare time.

She anticipated that the music of the Singing Jedi (for that was what she was going to refer to the Jedi Exile as from now on) to be thoroughly wretched, but instead she felt a distinct lack of disgust towards it. The main rhythm consisted of chugging, heavily-distorted riffs played on some instrument she did not recognise, backed by pounding, furious drumming. Most striking of all, however, was the singer's voice, which could go from a raspy growl to a piercing wail in such a short period of time that it almost seemed as if there two people singing.

Aina tried to piece together the lyrics, though it was difficult with the noise of the crowd:

_ "The face of angel,_

_ the heart of a whore_

_ She won't let you out of her sight_

_ 'Cause she's the lady in white!"_

"So what brings you two to the Lower City?" Mission continued. "Most off-worlders don't come down here, unless they've got business with Davik."

_"All her truths are lies_

_ All her love is hate_

_ You won't know wrong from right_

_ When you meet the lady in white!"_

"Who is this 'lady in white' the singer keeps going on about?" Aina asked. "The hate in his voice is obvious."

Mission shrugged. "I don't know, I don't really pay much attention to the words. She's probably his ex-girlfriend or something."

"Uh, back to what we were talking about," Carth said. "Who is this Davik you mentioned?"

"Davik's the biggest crime lord on Taris; the _only_ crime lord, as far as I know. If there's something rotten on this planet, then he's got a hand in it. Slavery, extortion, racketeering, murder-for-hire, software piracy, that sort of thing. Word is he's part of the Exchange."

"Hmm, I've heard of the Exchange," said Carth. "Not the kind of organisation you'd want to cross, but if anyone has blockade-breaking ships, it's them."

"Well, I heard Davik's got a new ship called the _Ebon Hawk,_ and it's supposed to be one of the fastest ships around. They say it'll make 0.5 past lightspeed; I'm not sure what that means, but it's got to be fast!"

"You seem rather well-informed," Aina noted, her words punctuated by a very loud burp from Zaalbar.

"I just pick up on things, you know? And you still haven't told me what you're doing down here."

"We're trying to reach the Undercity," Aina explained. "We're interested in the Republic escape pods that crashed there."

"Huh, I figured you were with the Republic. You don't really look like you're out for salvage," said Mission, right before they were interrupted by the music.

_"She'll come for you in the __night_

_ She's the lady in WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITE!"_

Carth was not impressed. "Jeez, the garbage kids listen to these days..."

Mission shot him a dirty look, but said nothing to him. "You probably won't find anything down there, anyway. The Black Vulkars probably snatched up anything valuable right after they hit the ground."

"Who are the Black Vulkars?" Aina asked.

"Just a bunch of thugs who like roaming the streets, shooting anything that moves. That's why there's hardly anyone out there right now. Things were better when the Hidden Beks were running the show, but ever since that slimeball Brejik betrayed Gadon the Vulkars have been trying to take over the place."

"Any idea what they want with the escape pods?" said Carth. "There's not exactly a whole lot to salvage in those things."

"They're probably after prisoners that they can sell as slaves," Mission explained. "I heard a rumour that they captured some big important Republic officer, and they're going to give her away as the prize for the big swoop race coming up."

"'Swoop race'?" said Aina, raising an eyebrow. "I do not know of this thing."

Mission looked at her with amazement that she could be unfamiliar with that particular activity, while Carth explained it to her. "It's racing in repulsorlift vehicles that are just large enough to seat one person. In my experience, swoop racers have brains the sizes of insects...and they live about as long, too."

Aina frowned. "And the winners of these races are offered slaves as prizes? Is there any depth of depravity to which the inhabitants of this world will not sink?"

He ignored her little outburst. "My gut feeling is that Bastila is the one they're offering as the 'prize'. They probably don't even know what sort of person they've captured."

"Then our task is simple: we find where the lair of these 'Black Vulkars' is, cut our way through, and free Bastila."

"Are you crazy?" Mission exclaimed. "The Vulkars have that place locked down tight; there's no way you're getting inside. But there is another way in," she said with a smirk. "I can show it to you...for a price."

"And what would that price be?" Aina asked.

"Five hundred credits," Mission declared, putting her hands to her hips, "and I get first pick of any loot we find in the Vulkar base. I bet they got all kinds of good stuff in there."

This was more than Carth could take. "_Five hundred__ credits?_ Blast, even the kids down here are trying to take us for a ride!"

Mission stormed up to him. "Hey, I told you to stop calling me 'kid'! I can take care of myself, in case you haven't noticed! But if you don't want my help-"

"Forgive Carth's ignorance," Aina interrupted. "We would be willing to pay you whatever you need. I see you carry a vibroblade with you; I take it you are knowledge of its use?"

"I'm good in a fight, if that's what you mean. Though if someone tries to make trouble, I usually just point at Big Z and, if they're smart, they'll run away screaming."

"Then we have wasted enough time in this wretched hive. Let's go."

Mission's Wookiee companion was not so eager to leave, however, and gave a loud howl of protest, which Mission responded, "Can't you go five minutes without thinking about your stomach? Just eat and walk at the same time, then!" This proved to be rather unsound advice, as Zaalbar dropped most of his food on the way out, leaving the cantina in an even filthier state. Fortunately, no one seemed to care. Zaalbar glanced at Aina with an expression of amusement, no doubt at having found a non-Wookiee he could stand eye-to-eye with.

"We should stick to the alleys," said Mission. "The Vulkars are crazy, shooting anyone in the see in the streets and taking their stuff. I guess they're want to prove how tough they are or something, but I really wish someone would come along and deal with them. That's why I'm going with you – you look like the sort of people who could clean this place up."

They followed Mission through a bewildering array of narrow alleys, dimly-lit corridors, and long-abandoned structures, each one dirtier and more decrepit than the last. Evidence of the gang war was all around them, from the blaster marks on the walls to the dead bodies left to rot where they had fallen.

"So where is this other entrance to the Vulkar hideout, if I may ask?" said Aina.

"Well, you're probably not going to like it. First, we have to go down to the Undercity, and from there we have to go through the sewers."

Aina stopped. "The _sewers?_ Why would a gang have an entrance to their hideout in the _sewers? _What sense does that make?"

Mission looked annoyed at the question. "I haven't really had the chance to ask them, if you know what I mean. And nothing on Taris makes much such sense if you think about it."

"That we agree on."

* * *

After nearly a half-hour of wandering through the dismal streets of the Lower City, Mission brought to them to a dirty, battered elevator that descended even further into the darkness below. "You gotta watch yourself in the Undercity," said Mission. "There's these horrible flesh-eating monsters down there called rakghouls. They say that if you get bitten by one of them, you'll turn into one!"

Aina gritted her teeth. "Lovely. Can this planet get any worse? I suppose the sewers could be filled with rancors..."

Mission glanced up at her. "Actually they are. How'd you know?"

"Never mind...let us be done with this, then," she replied, rubbing her forehead.

The elevator travelled so slowly that it would have been faster if one had simply descended via a ladder. "Hey Aina," said Mission, "can I ask you something?"

"What do you wish to know?"

"Your hair, it's all white. I've never seen that on a human woman who wasn't really old. How'd it get like that?"

For reasons beyond her explanation, this question did not annoy her as much as it ought to have. "I am Echani. This is how we look."

"Ech...Echani? I've never heard of them. But I've never been off Taris, so there's probably lots of stuff I don't know about."

"And I have never been away from my homeworld of Eshan until coming here. This world has not impressed me, to put it mildly."

"And what's your planet like?"

Thinking of Eshan made her wistful, but she decided to indulge the young Twi'lek's curiosity. "It is not like Taris at all, if you must know. Here the people have stupidly built over all the land, but on Eshan it is possible for one to be alone in the wilderness, with no one around for hundreds or thousands of kilometres."

"Wow...I can't imagine that."

"It is a world of towering mountains, wind-swept glaciers, and deep, dark forests. I cannot imagine that there is a planet in this galaxy that can exceed it in beauty."

The elevator shook and shuddered as it descended, a journey that seemed to take forever. "Tell me of the Undercity," said Aina after a minute of silence. "I take it the people there are yet more destitute than those of the Lower City?"

Carth was the one who spoke first. "It's part of the way the justice system on Taris works, Aina. Severe crimes are punished by execution, and anything else gets you banished to the Undercity. And any children born to these outcasts have to live down there, too. As you probably guessed, Taris isn't really big on social equality."

"And the poor tolerate this? Why do they not simply rise up?"

"They did, actually, about a hundred years ago. Millions of people died in the struggle, and huge swaths of the planet were laid to waste. I don't think Taris has ever recovered, and if you ask me, I don't think it ever will."

The elevator came to a jarring halt, and the door made a feeble attempt at opening, getting stuck halfway. Carth forced it open, and the four of them stepped into the dark, sunless realm of the Undercity.

The sight before her was even bleaker than Aina expected. There was no light here, with the sun wholly obscured by the skyscrapers, which appeared less like buildings and more like the walls of a towering gorge. The only source of illumination came from torches and burning barrels, and by this dismal light Aina could see the dirty, shambling figures who inhabited this dreary place, dressed in rags and tatters. A number of them glanced up at them, but none made any movement towards them.

Further ahead they came upon a collection of ramshackle huts crudely constructed from whatever wreckage and debris the people could get their hands on. Smoke from cooking fires lingered in the air, combining with the smell of waste and refuse to create a truly oppressive atmosphere. One of the Undercity inhabitants, a dark-skinned man who looked to be of some importance, approached them.

"You have returned, Mission," he said, evidently being quite familiar with the young Twi'lek. "But who are these strangers with you? They do not look like salvagers."

"I'm not here for salvage, Gendar," she explained. "I'm helping them get to the sewers. They're looking for a Republic officer or someone like that."

"Yes, several soldiers have come through here to investigate the crashed pods. I'm afraid you're wasting your time if you're looking for survivors. They've surely been taken by the rakghouls by now."

"Not this particular survivor," said Carth. "She's been taken prisoner by one of the Lower City gangs, and Mission's helping us get to their hideout." The way he spoke the word "helping" made it clear that he did not exactly trust Mission to do what she promised.

"I see. But as I said before, those parts of the Undercity belong to the rakghouls. If you are going that way, then we must close the gate behind you. We cannot risk having our village infected by those monsters. There is no cure for the plague, and we have no choice but to kill the infected before they turn and spread the disease to others."

_It is amazing that they have survived this long,_ she thought. _They must be hardy folk indeed._

Mission and Carth were ready to move on, but Aina wanted to ask this person some questions. "Are you the leader of this village?"

"In a way, though I would not say that I am more important than any other of the villagers." Gendar paused for a moment. "I would ask you something, upworlder, since you are one of the few who would speak with us."

"Then ask your question."

"I would ask you of the Upper City, if you have travelled there. Those who live in this village are descendants of those were cast down long ago, and they have no memory of that place. I wish to know what it is like."

Aina was unsure of how to answer. "I am an off-worlder, and have seen little of the Upper City."

"But you have been there. Tell me, is it true that in the Upper City, one can always see the sun, the stars, and the sky?"

"That is true," she answered, "but if you wish to live there, you must also live with the people of the Upper City, and in my short time there, I saw little of worth in them. They are the people who condemned you to this place for the crimes of your ancestors, and foolishly built over the entirety of the planet's surface, blotting out the sun and making the planet nearly incapable of sustaining life. They allowed the despotic Sith to conquer the planet without offering one mote of resistance, likely because of their cowardice. If I may be blunt, I would say that, if you are looking for a paradise, you will not find it on this world."

"I sense the truth in your words, upworlder. Most people here come to accept our fate as outcasts, but there are some who speak of a 'Promised Land', a place far away where we could be free from hunger and disease. But I am certain that this is little more than a story told to keep us from succumbing to despair. I apologise, upworlder, I have wasted enough of your time already."

With that Gendar turned and walked away, although Aina did not immediately rejoin her companions. Instead she stood there, looking over the pitiful sight of the Undercity dwellers attempting to carve out some meagre existence in this dark, lightless place. She could not imagine a clearer example of the sharp divide that existed amongst the people of Taris, something of which no likeness existed on her homeworld. It was no wonder that they had capitulated so quickly to the Sith; how could the Tarisians ever stand against an invading force when whole segments of the population were completely segregated from each other? She wondered if there were anything that could sink her opinion of Taris even further, but Aina refused to speculate, knowing that doing so would be tempting fate.

At the opposite end of the village stood a heavy metal gate guarded by a lone, bored-looking individual. "Heading out again, Mission?" he asked as they approached. "You've got to have rocks in your head to go looking for salvage out there. The rakghouls have been swarming over the place ever since those pods crashed down."

"I can take of myself," Mission said defiantly. "Besides, I'm not looking for salvage. We're trying to find our way into the sewers."

"The sewers? Why in the blazes would you...you know what? I'm not even going to ask. I'm just warning you that we have to close this gate behind you, so don't expect me to let you back in if I find out you've turned into a horrible, flesh-eating monster."

"You'd think the Tarisian government would exterminate these creatures," Aina remarked as the gate was opened. "Even if they care nothing for the people here, surely they must realise that these 'rakghouls' will not confine themselves to the Undercity."

Carth sighed. "Aina, you keep asking me these sorts of questions, so I'll just give you one answer for all of them: the people of Taris are idiots. There, I said it. Are you happy now?"

"Yes. Very."

Past the village gates was a vast, empty expanse, with the only features being the towering support structures for Taris' skyscrapers. Aina gazed upwards, trying to discern even the tiniest glint of daylight, but all she could see was endless blackness. She turned her eyes towards the barren ground and wondered how long it had been since anything had grown here, or when the last ray of sunlight had fallen upon this place.

"So who is this person you're looking for, anyway?" Mission asked. "They must be pretty important if you're coming down here."

"Her name's Bastila, a Jedi," said Aina, earning a hostile glance from Carth, who did not like her revealing this fact. "A very important Jedi, or so I am told."

"A _Jedi?_ Wow, I knew you had to up to something big. You hear all kinds of stories about the Jedi down in the Lower City, though I guess a lot of them aren't true."

"And what have you heard?"

"They say that a single Jedi can take on a hundred people without breaking a sweat, and that they can rip your arms off using only their minds. And someone once told me that they can kill you just by looking you in the eye."

"I think those stories may be somewhat exaggerated, Mission. Although I must confess that I am ignorant of the Force; those who are sensitive to it are rare amongst my people."

A little further afield, they came across an empty escape pod. Or not quite so empty, as they discovered when something leaped out of it.

Whatever the thing was, it had pale, veiny skin that glistened with mucous, and when it drew closer the true hideousness of the thing became apparent. It moved too fast for Aina to discern any features other than a mouth full of teeth and very large claws, which left little doubt that this was one of the rakghouls the villagers had mentioned.

_They say that if you get bitten by one of them, you'll turn into one,_ Mission had said. Aina didn't know if there were any truth to those words, but she was not eager to find out.

Carth pulled out a pair of pistols and opened up with a volley of blaster fire, while Aina and Mission readied their vibroblades. Zaalbar drew his bowcaster, a most curious weapon in that it did not look like any projectile weapon Aina had ever seen before. The Wookiee let loose a single shot, a metallic bolt wreathed an envelope of plasma, that caught the rakghoul squarely in the torso.

To her surprise, the creature did not fall immediately, shrugging off several more blaster bolts before being felled. It died with a thoroughly grotesque noise, a combination of a gurgle and howl. Equally offensive was the stench of thing, smelling like a festering corpse. Up close the thing looked even worse, with a pair of beady eyes in the middle of its head and what looked to be ragged scraps of flesh still stuck to its teeth.

"It would appear that whoever was in that pod was devoured by this creature," Aina noted in a rather matter-of-fact manner.

"Or that _was_ the guy in the pod," added Mission, who felt the need to reiterate what would happen should one of them become infected with the rakghoul disease. Zaalbar answered her with a distressed howl.

"Uh, I'd rather not think about that," said Carth. "Let's just keep moving."

About half a minute passed before Aina once again succumbed to the urge to needle Carth about something. "That is an..._interesting_...fighting technique you possess, Carth. I do believe blaster pistols have sights, so how is that you can aim when you have one in each hand?"

"Who said anything about 'aiming'? I find blasters work best if you just skip that part and go straight to laying down as much fire as possible, so your enemies never have a chance to shoot back."

Mission wasn't buying it. "Come on, Carth, we both know the only reason to use two blasters is because it makes you look cool. That's why everyone in the Lower City does it. Personally, I prefer a vibroblade. Works great with a stealth belt; just sneak up behind someone and _wham!_ Right in the back!"

Carth shook his head. "Am I only one who finds the fact that a kid is stabbing people in the back with a vibroblade to be disturbing?"

Mission was about to let him have it for calling her a "kid," but Aina spoke first. "Echani children far younger than she are trained in the use of vibroblades. That she wields one is hardly unusual."

"See? Two against one!" Mission said with a laugh.

"All right, just forget I said anything. How much further to the sewers?"

"It's just over that way," she said, pointing to a large permacrete column some distance away. "With any luck we won't run into any more rakghouls."

As if on cue, a loud cacophony of roars and howls rose up from behind them, and when they turned around they discovered that a massive horde of rakghouls was now bearing down on them.

Carth shot an angry look at Mission. "You just had to say that, didn't you?"

The rakghouls were beyond counting, and even an imbecile could see that they had no chance against them. They burst into a sprint, hoping to get to the sewer entrance before the slavering horde descended upon them.

After but a few a seconds Aina realised that she was greatly outpacing her comrades, who would soon be overwhelmed by the approaching swarm of rakghouls. At the base of the permacrete column was a heavy metal grate that, to Aina's great displeasure, was rusted shut. She glanced back at the others and saw that it would only be a matter of seconds before the rakghoul horde would be upon them. Carth and Zaalbar opened up with a volley of blaster fire and bowcaster bolts, taking down a number of the fiends, yet it was in vain, as they would be ripped apart in a matter of seconds...

Uttering a few choice bits of Echani profanity, she gave the gate a good, hard kick, and when that failed to budge it, she slammed her entire body against the gate, which was sufficient to dislodge it.

Aina scrambled into the dark passageway beyond, ignoring the horrendous stench that greeted her nostrils. The other three followed, with the rakghouls a mere few metres behinds them. The instant they were clear, Carth slammed the gate, then shot at the latch with his blaster, fusing it shut. Outside, the rakghouls clawed frantically at the gate, a few managing to stick their arms between the bars. In a pique, Mission hacked them off with her vibroblade.

They stopped to catch their breath a short ways ahead. "Let's not do _that_ again," said Carth, holstering his blasters. "I hope there's no more of those things in the sewers."

"No," Mission replied, "but there's a lot of Gamorreans down here."

With an exasperated sigh, Carth drew his blasters once again.

* * *

High above the skies of Taris, Irenaceus paced about his private chambers, utterly infuriated with the slow pace of events. There was little he could do to hasten the search for Bastila, and he was discovering that boredom was quite possibly the worst torment imaginable. Perhaps _that_ would be the best torture imaginable for the troublesome Jedi: locking her away somewhere with absolutely _nothing_ to do for all eternity.

Irenaceus' quarters were the height of luxury and refinement, at least in his eyes. The floor was covered in bright red shag carpet, and the walls were adorned with scrollwork depicting various scenes from Sith history (which consisted primarily of people being brutally slaughtered with various bladed weapons). At the far end of his chambers was his bed, covered in purple velour and featuring an ultra-high-end memory mattress (it had cost 50,000 credits) that guaranteed the Sith Lord the best night's rest money could buy, because it simply wouldn't do to have to fight Jedi while one was beset by aches and cramps.

On the wall behind the bed was a large painting, commissioned at great expense, depicting a shirtless, heavily-muscled Irenaceus standing proudly atop a pile of dead Jedi, with his long, golden hair blowing in the wind. At the bottom of the painting were a pair of buxom, scantily-clad Twi'leks who clung to his legs, and were apparently unperturbed by the pile of dead bodies they were lying upon. Written atop the bottom frame, in gilded letters, were the words DARTH IRENACEUS – PAN-DIMENSIONAL LIEGE LORD. A small lamp below the painting ensured that it would always be illuminated, even when the lights were switched off.

The whole room was filled with the pale blue light of a holoprojector, which displayed the image of the Sith governeror Taris, a man who's name Irenaceus had not bothered to learn. The man had taken over governorship after the Sith had conquered Taris, disposing of the previous holder of that office in the usual Sith manner by hurling him out the window.

"I assure you, Lord Irenaceus, that the search for Bastila is proceeding as quickly as possible. The escape pods crashed all across the planet's northern hemisphere, and it will take time to search the entire area."

"Any idea how long it will take?"

"I don't know, milord. It could take weeks or months."

_"Months!"_ he cried. "This is unacceptable! I am not going to let the fleet putter about this backwater planet for months while you fumble about in the dark." Irenaceus paced about, trying desperately to think up some way of remedying the intolerable situation. "It would seem, governor, that you are in need of some motivating factor, so I shall provide you with one. If you haven't found Bastila – or even a lead on her location – by the end of tomorrow, I'm going to_ destroy the entire planet!_ Perhaps that will encourage you to speed up the process."

The holographic figure shrank back. "But...milord...there is just no way we can possibly-"

Irenaceus waved his finger at him. "_Na-uh-uh-uh!_ No excuses!" he said before cutting of the communication link.

_If only Revan were still here,_ he thought. All Revan would have to do is glare at the planet from orbit, and the people of Taris would turn over Bastila out of fear. _And what to do with Bastila once I have her?_ He could simply have her tortured to death of course, but that seemed like such a waste. How much better it would be if she could be turned to the dark side! Her Battle Meditation would prove invaluable to the Sith cause, in addition to her considerable skill in battle (as Irenaceus' artificial arm was testament to). But more importantly, turning Bastila to the dark side would open up the possibility of hooking up a power coupling with her, and deep down, that was what he _really_ wanted.


	5. The Jedi Prodigy

Chapter 5 – The Jedi Prodigy

* * *

Aina had hoped that she would have grown accustomed to foul stenches by now, to the point where she would no longer notice them, but the Undercity sewers thwarted her hopes. Zaalbar appeared to find the smell even more intolerable, letting several unhappy moans the further on they went.

"I don't care what you smell!" said Mission, frustrated with Zaalbar's complaints. "We're not going back!"

"If I may ask you something, Mission," said Aina. "You seem very trusting of us, when we have only known each other for a short period. Do you so readily trust strangers?"

"I can tell a lot about someone just from the way they look. Good skill to have in these parts; you won't last long if you don't know who's going to be your friend and who's going to stick a knife in your back, if you know what I mean. There's so many things I can say about you, if you want to know."

"Oh?" Aina replied. "And what can you tell about me?"

"I can tell you've never been to the Lower City, for one thing. People there try to blend in, but you walk like you _want_ people to notice you. Though, I guess someone like you would find it kind of hard to blend in wherever you go."

Carth was having none of this. "From what I've seen, kid, you'd be better off not trusting anyone in this place. There are a lot of people out there who are very, very good at making at themselves look like someone they're not, and betray you when you least expect it."

Aina gave him a cold stare. "I would say that it is better to be betrayed than to trust no one at all."

"And I say it's better to trust no one, because the ones you trust the most betray you in the worst possible way."

She stopped. "Oh? Is that so? What happened to make you think this?"

"Now's not the time to talk about it. Like I told you the other day, I don't trust you, or anyone."

"You think I am going to stab you in the back?"

"In a word, yes."

"You obviously know little of me, or my people, then," she answered with a scowl. "I am a warrior; if I wanted you dead, I would not stab you in the back...I would drive my blade straight into your heart."

"That's...not very reassuring."

"Is it not? Think on this: if I wanted you dead, I would have had many opportunities to kill you since we first met."

Carth sighed. "All right, I get your point. Now can we please stop talking about killing me and get on with whatever it is we were doing?"

"If you wish." Aina looked back at Mission, who simply gave her a look that said "What's _his_ problem?"

_This isn't the end of this,_ she thought. Carth insulted her by suggesting that she was given to treachery, and the temptation to strike him for his effrontery was great indeed. Still, she was curious as to what had brought about his streak of paranoia, as she doubted very much it was something that had come about on its own. This was not because she found Carth interesting (quite the opposite; Aina found him unbearably dull), but rather because she knew that this particular quirk of his would flare up at the worst possible time.

It went without saying that sewers of Taris were dirty and foul-smelling yet, strangely enough, they also happened oddly spacious. Despite her height, Aina found no trouble walking through the twisting and meandering passages, and every so often they would come to a cavernous chamber where several passages converged. She was about to ask why the Tarisians had built their sewers this way, but she then remembered Carth's words, that the people of Taris were idiots, and she had her explanation.

"You said these sewers were filled with Gamorreans," Carth said to Mission. "Strange that we haven't seen any."

"Yeah, they're usually all over this place. Guess the smell reminds them of home or something. I wonder where they got to?"

As to answer her question, a low, rumbling growl emanated from somewhere off in the darkness.

Zaalbar gave a fearful moan, while Carth looked around for the source of the noise. "I have a bad feeling about this..."

_He probably has a "bad feeling" about everything,_ Aina thought, but whatever lurked in the depths of the sewers did not sound like a foe she wished to face.

Mission continued leading them deeper into the sewers, through a maze of twisting tunnels and passages that all looked identical to one another. Carth looked ever more suspicious they further, no doubt convinced that Mission was leading them into a trap. Making matters worse were the intermittent growling noises coming from somewhere behind them, which seemed to be growing louder. Things did not improve when the four of them started seeing severed limbs and bones with ragged bits of flesh still attached scattered about.

"How much farther?" Aina asked.

"The Vulkar hideout is just up ahead, past there," said Mission, pointing to a rusty metal grate at the end of the passage. "I think they use these sewers as an escape route or something, in case someone attacks their hideout."

"An escape route that leads directly to the rakghoul-infested Undercity?"

"Hey, I never said the Vulkars were smart."

"Smart or not, we can't just charge in there guns blazing," said Carth, examining the metal grate. "And I don't think we're going to be able to go sneaking around, either. People are going to notice a Wookiee and a seven-foot-tall Echani."

Mission thought it over for a few seconds. "I have an idea. The Vulkars deal in slaves, so why don't we pretend that we've taken Big Z as a prisoner? Then we'll ask them to take us to wherever they keep people they're going to sell as slaves. If we're lucky, your Jedi will be there, too."

Zaalbar loudly voiced his displeasure with this plan, but Carth nodded in agreement. "That's not a bad idea, actually...assuming they don't shoot us the moment we walk into the place."

"Now, all we need to is something to tie his arms up with," said Mission, looking around the sewer passage, while Zaalbar continued to let them know how unhappy he was with this arrangement. Eventually she found some old piece of electrical cable, which she began tying around the Wookiee's wrists.

"Oh, quit complaining!" she snapped after Zaalbar let out a loud whine. "It'll only be for a little while."

"Are you sure the Vulkars won't recognise you?" said Aina. "I imagine a Twi'lek with a Wookiee as her companion would not go unnoticed in this part of Taris."

"I doubt it; I know enough to stay away from the Vulkars, and if anyone recognises me, I'll just say I got desperate and sold my best friend into slavery." Zaalbar emitted a mournful whimper at such a horrid thought.

Aina motioned towards the metal grate. "Then let us be on with it, then. Though I would have preferred it if Carth were the one playing the slave." This earned her a blazing glare from him, which was exactly what she wanted.

She forced aside the grating, which opened up into a long, dark corridor. They were only a few metres in when it became so dark that they were unable to see anything right in front of their faces, and when they entered the Vulkar base they quite literally stumbled into it.

The gang's "base" (if Aina could dignify it with such a word) looked to have been carved out of solid rock, and was dimly lit by glowlamps that provided so little illumination that one could barely see two metres ahead...which was far enough to see the three men standing there with blaster rifles levelled at them. Aina quickly sized up the three men, who looked dirty and mean, and determined that they would be no match for a trained warrior. Still, the Black Vulkars had the advantage of numbers, as well as being on their home turf.

"Wh...who are you?" said one of the men. "You've got five seconds to explain what you're doing here before I turn you into an ash heap!"

Aina raised a hand. "Lower your weapons; we are not here to do battle. We wish to sell this Wookiee here as a slave, and I am told that the Black Vulkars are the rising power in the Lower City."

"Damn right, we are!" said the man. "But this is supposed to be a secret entrance! How did you find out about it?"

"Your friends blab too much," said Mission. "Everyone in the Lower City knows how to get into this place."

"I knew it!" said one of the other men. "I keep telling you, this place is looser than a bar-hopping Twi'lek."

"Hey!" Mission shot back.

"I assure you, we are not here to cause trouble," Aina said. "We would have approached you in the Lower City, but your men shooting people in the street made that impossible. But if you do not desire this Wookiee slave, then perhaps..." She paused, struggling to recall the name of the rival gang to the Vulkars. "...then perhaps Hidden Beks would be more receptive to our offer."

The men talked amongst themselves for a few moments before reaching their decision. "All right, all right," said the first Vulkar, "I'll get Brejik, and he'll decide if this Wookiee is worth buying. Until then, you stay put." He walked away into the darkness, leaving the other two to watch Aina and her companions. Both of them stared at her, clearly unsure of what to make of this seven-foot-tall Echani who had come to their hideout. It was a look she was getting very used to receiving.

A minute later they were approached by a man dressed in heavy, battered armour, bearing a permanent sneer on his face. A symbol of a flaming fist was crudely painted onto his chestplate, which Aina assumed was the symbol of the Black Vulkars. This was Brejik, she guessed, and even though he had not yet spoken one word Aina was already filled with deep loathing for the man. He looked at her the same way one might look at some particularly freakish creature in a zoo somewhere.

"Hey, I recognise you! You're the one who defeated the Commander in the duelling pit! I won a lot of creds betting against that idiot, thanks to you." Brejik had a grating, nasally voice that made Aina wanted to strangle him, just so that he would stop talking.

"Yes, and now I come with an offer for you. I wish to sell this Wookiee as a slave," she said, looking towards Zaalbar.

Brejik walked up to the Wookiee and examined him. "You should have done a better job tying it up; I don't want to have to put this thing down if it gets loose."

Zaalbar roared in Brejik's face, causing him to recoil backwards, making gagging noises all the while. "_Gaaarrghh!"_ he gasped, waving his hand in front of his face. "Its breath smells like bantha dung! What have you been feeding this thing, rotten meat? Get it to the cell blocks!"

"There is something else, Brejik. I wish to see what slaves you have available for purchase, so that I might add to my..._collection._" She gestured towards Carth and Mission, who gave her worried looks.

Brejik was not very impressed. "Eh, those don't look like very good slaves to me. You new at this or something? What do they do for you, exactly?"

"The Twi'lek is a bottomless well of cutting remarks that I find endlessly amusing," she explained, "and the bearded one suffers from a peculiar malady of the mind that causes him, at regular intervals, to begin ranting about how everyone in the galaxy is out to get him, at which point I silence him by hitting him over the head with something large and heavy. It is extremely cathartic." Aina did not even bother to look over at Carth, knowing he would be giving her the evil eye. "Yet I wish to be rid of this Wookiee, for the obvious reasons."

"Uh, yeah, whatever you say. Follow me, and no funny stuff. Yesterday we caught some Hidden Beks creeping around this place, so we strung their carcasses up all through the Lower City. Maybe people will get the message, that the Black Vulkars are the wave of the future!"

They followed Brejik through the dark caverns, which confirmed Aina's suspicions that the gang had either hewn their hideout out of the bedrock or, which she considered the more likely possibility, that this was a natural cavern. It led her to wondering about what this planet must have looked like before it had been built over.

Brejik's flunkies were leering at her, making her shudder in disgust. "The Republic escape pods crashing down here must be a boon for you," said Aina, trying to keep up her pretence of being a slave buyer.

"Ha! You bet it has! The Beks don't take slaves, they think it makes them all high and mighty, but they can't see the profit in it. And after we win the upcoming swoop race, we'll have enough recruits to crush the Beks once and for all and get Davik off our back."

"Defying Davik...that is a risky move."

Brejik sneered. "I'd like to see that old man come down here and try to mess with us...we'd frak him up good!"

He brought them to their holding area for slaves, who were kept in crude metal ages, guarded by bored-looking gang members wielding stun batons. The slaves themselves consisted of various species, some still wearing their Republic uniforms, and all of them bore resigned, hopeless expressions on their faces. Still, it was better fate than being turned into a rakghoul, Aina reasoned. Would it be possible to free them? She had no idea how many

"You can have whoever you want if you got the creds, but there's one slave that's not for sale," he said, pointing to a cage against the far wall. Inside was a brown-haired woman, who looked up at the group as they approached.

Aina froze. This had to be Bastila, and it was the same woman she had seen in the vision she had experienced when she had first awoken on Taris. Though Bastila had visited her homeworld in search of recruits, Aina had never met the woman face-to-face. How was it possible that she had dreamt of someone she had never seen before?

"This is some high-ranking Republic officer," Brejik said. "We're offering her as the prize for the swoop race coming up. When people see what we can offer as a mere _prize,_ they'll flock to our ranks like flies to a corpse!"

Up to this point, Aina had made no move against Brejik, but some preternatural sense within her told her that now was the time for action. She reached back and grasped the hilt of her vibroblade, concealing the gesture from those surrounding her. "This woman is not what you think. Take a look at her again."

Brejik turned around. "I don't see any-"

Before he could finish Aina drew her weapon and drove it into his back, the blade easily piercing Brejik's crude armour. A half-second later Carth's blasters were out and he was gunning down Brejik's men, while Zaalbar broke free of his bonds, picked up one of the Vulkars, and hurled him against the wall hard enough to snap his spine. Mission finished off the last of them with a few quick slashes from her blade, moving so quickly her foe had no time to react before he was cut down.

Aina turned to Carth. "Free the Jedi; I'll free the rest of the slaves. If we can't unlock their cages, maybe Zaalbar can force them open."

As Carth tried unlocking the cage keeping Bastila captive, he recalled how often he had quarrelled with the woman back on the _Endar Spire,_ and how much her haughty, self-righteous demeanour had grated on her nerves. A part of him hoped that Bastila would be immensely displeased at their rescue effort and would give Aina a stern upbringing. After all, what could be better than seeing one arrogant, imperious woman being verbally berated by another one?

Unfortunately for Carth, Bastila would not give him such satisfaction. Upon being freed from her cage, she spoke to Aina first, and her tone was hardly condescending.

"You...you're the Echani from the _Endar Spire,_" she said, her voice slurred and unsteady. The Vulkars had obviously drugged her, or done something else to make her docile and compliant.

To her eyes, Bastila was a strange little woman ("little" being relative; Aina was nearly two feet taller than she was). She could not imagine her actually going toe-to-toe with foes on the battlefield; Bastila looked much too delicate for that. More worryingly, how was it that a Jedi had been captured by these criminal lowlifes? Did she not possess a lightsaber? Was she not trained in the use of the Force? Could she not manipulate the minds of weak-minded individuals with her powers?

"Yes," she said as she unlocked one of the prisoner's cages, "Carth and I were the only other survivors from the _Endar Spire. _We've spent the past few days trying to find you."

"I guess I should have expected you would be the only...contractor...to make it off the ship," said Bastila. "The other ones the Republic signed on hardly seemed like reliable people. They accompanied me over my vocal objections."

Not hearing the upbraiding he had been expecting, Carth silently cursed to himself. He had one more reason to curse when Bastila approached Aina.

"Wait," said the Jedi, a look of complete surprise on her face, "I sense...the Force is strong with you. _Very_ strong! How did I not notice this before?"

Another person would have been shocked at this revelation; Aina simply disbelieved it. "You're imagining things. Perhaps this is some side-effect from whatever drugs these lowlifes used on you."

Bastila's face scrunched up in a way that was supposed to convey anger or annoyance, but merely looked amusing to Aina's eyes. "Of course it isn't! I'm a Jedi; I can sense this sort of thing."

"Uh, look," said Carth, interrupting them, "perhaps we could discuss this later, when we're _not_ in some bloodthirsty gang's hideout?"

"Yes, of course," said Bastila. "I assume you have a way out of this place; one that won't have us fighting our way through the entire Black Vulkar gang?"

"We came in through the sewers," Aina explained. "The Twi'lek showed us the way."

Her face scrunched up in disgust, a manner of facial scrunching-up that was entirely different from before, yet one that Aina found no less amusing. "The...sewers? I guess I should have expected as much. Then let's be off before the rest of the gang finds out we're here. Are all the prisoners free?"

"Just about," Carth said as Zaalbar finished prying open the last of the cages.

From the look of them, the prisoners, which numbered twelve in all, were Republic soldiers who had been captured by the Black Vulkars in the same way Bastila had (though, not being Jedi, at least they had an excuse). "Thank the Force you came!" said one of them. "We'd barely hit the ground before those thugs were beating us with stun sticks. It's like they were waiting for us."

"And then there those...those _things,_" said another, shaking noticeably. "The whole surface of the planet is crawling them. After they attacked us, some of us started...started _changing into them!"_

"We will have to go back through the Undercity, which means the possibility of encountering the rakghouls," said Aina. "Though if you would prefer to remain here-"

"No, I'm getting out of this place. I'd rather die on my feet than be sold off like livestock. I don't even know what the Republic

Aina led the group back the way they had come in, though she was distracted all the while by Bastila's words. _"The Force is strong with you..."_ At no point in her life had there ever been an inkling that she might be Force-sensitive, and though she would never admit it to anyone, the thought terrified her. Opening oneself to the Force meant one's life suddenly became a lot more complicated, and introduced the ever-present danger of the dark side.

Carth's irritating voice broke her from her thoughts. "You know, Aina, you stabbed the leader of the Black Vulkars in the back. Weren't you just saying just minutes ago that a warrior wouldn't do that sort of thing?"

"I knew you would bring this up, Carth. Brejik was a fool who turned his back to an armed opponent he had no reason to trust; I merely punished him for his stupidity. And I believe we were discussing the hypothetical situation of me betraying _you_...are you suggesting that you are on the same level as some criminal lowlife?"

"Um, well, _no,_ but-"

"Then there is nothing more to discuss."

Having been rebuffed in his attempt to bother Aina, Carth decided to bother Bastila instead. "I've noticed you don't have your lightsaber, Bastila. Seems like kind of an important thing to lose, don't you think?"

Once more, Bastila's face got all scrunched up. "I did not 'lose' it! When my escape pod crashed, the impact knocked me unconscious. The Vulkars must have taken my lightsaber when they...captured...me." She uttered the word "captured" through clenched teeth, very clearly humiliated at her abduction.

Carth smirked at her. "See, that's the thing I don't get, Bastila. The Vulkars had no idea you were a Jedi; they thought you were just some high-ranking Republic officer. You'd think if they'd taken your lightsaber, they'd know you were a Jedi."

"Well, maybe they...they..." she stammered, before regaining his icy composure. "I am your superior officer, and I do not have to answer your questions!"

Aina recalled the conversation she had overhead on the _Endar Spire_ about how Carth and Bastila had argued constantly. The last thing she wanted was these two to start bickering with one another; truly, that was the one thing that could lead her down the path to the dark side.

Their trip through the sewers was proceeding without incident, though there remained the issue of the rakghouls. If the horde still remained outside the sewer entrance, then they would have no choice but to go back to the Vulkar base and fight their way out.

But when they came to a large junction in the sewer tunnels, something else awaited them. It was not rakghouls, but no less contemptible: it was the Commander, waiting for her with a half-dozen hired thugs. His face was hidden behind a helmet, but she instantly recognised his battered black armour.

"Well, well, if it isn't the little girl from the duelling ring. Following you here was too easy; 'course, I had to kill a few hundred rakghouls that got in my way."

Aina crossed her arms. "And you must be the blustering lout I triumphed over in the duelling ring. Do you enjoy defeat so much that you desire a second taste of it?"

Bastila gave Aina a scornful look. "You...fought in a _duelling ring?_ I thought you were supposed to be looking for me!"

A deep growling noise rumbled somewhere off in the distance, the same noise they had heard during their first journey through the sewers. "What was that?" exclaimed one of the Commander's thugs.

"It's nothing," he said, before turning his focus back to Aina. "You know, if I chose to, I could kill every last one of you and walk out of these sewers unscathed."

One of the Republic soldiers they had freed evidently had prior dealings with the Commander. "You!" the man cried. "You're the _schutta_ who nearly killed my brother back on Ord Mantell!"

"'Nearly' killed?" the Commander replied. "I'm sorry, I'll try harder the next time I meet him. But my grudge is with this Echani bitch, not you."

Aina drew her vibroblade. "This is not the duelling ring, fool! If you fight me, you will die."

The growling noise came again, much closer this time. This did not sit well with the Commander's thugs. "Uh, boss, that didn't sound like no sewer rat. Maybe we should get outta here?"

He spun around to face the offending goon. "Any of you start running, I'll kill you."

"Aina," said Bastila softly, "this man is a wanted criminal. He has the death sentence on thirteen worlds. What were you thinking, fighting him in some duelling arena?"

The Commander overheard the Jedi's words. "'The death sentence on thirteen worlds'? Lady, I _am_ the death sentence on thirteen worlds! I'm the best bounty hunter in this galaxy, and that's not me bragging – that's fact."

As if to rebuke his words, something very large and very angry roared from one of the adjoining tunnels. A second later a colossal mass of flesh and muscle emerged from the passageway, and even Aina could see that this could be nothing other than a rancor. Standing ten metres in height, with jaws powerful enough to bite through durasteel and claws that could rip a man apart, Aina knew that this was a foe easily beyond her. This fact was lost on the Commander and his thugs, however, and they immediately opened fire on the beast with their blasters.

Unfortunately, this did little but annoy the rancor. It grabbed one of the Commander's men, then threw him against the wall with enough force to kill him instantly. The rest of the hired goons turned and fled, ignoring the Commander's earlier threat. Left alone to face the monstrous creature, he applied his typical solution to any problem he encountered: shooting at it until it went away.

"Run!" Mission cried. "There's another way out of here! Follow me!"

The rest of the group did as the Twi'lek instructed, but Aina stayed back for a second to observe the fate of the Commander. The rancor, with saliva dripping from its mouth, snatched him up with one of its claws, then gazed at him with its black, beady eyes. It let out a deafening roar, showering the Commander with spittle. He tried in vain to free himself, but the beast had twelve times his strength. The last thing Aina saw as she caught up to her companions was the rancor holding the Commander up by his leg, then dropping the man into its jaws, swallowing him whole.

_A fate most well-deserved,_ she thought.

* * *

Since the universe was entirely malicious, the group managed to return to the Lower City without incident. Bastila explained that the Sith were looking for her alone, and that for their safety, the freed Republic soldiers could not remain with her. Instead, she told them to remain in hiding in the Lower City, leaving only the five of them. As Aina feared, Bastila and Carth immediately got to bickering.

"We've been hiding out in an abandoned apartment in the Upper City," said Carth. "We should get back there, and start figuring out a way to get off this rock."

The scrunching-up of her face indicated that this was not something she wanted to hear. "What? You mean you don't have a way off Taris? Just what you have been doing all this time, aside from fighting in some duelling pit?"

"Trying to find you, _your highness,_" Carth replied with an angry scowl.

"Excuse me, Carth, but I don't think that's an appropriate way to an address a superior officer."

"That may be true, but a good officer doesn't demand the impossible of her troops, and then berate them for not delivering!"

They went on like this for some time, with Carth insisting that he, being more experienced than Bastila, understood the situation for better than her. Bastila, in turn, argued that being a Jedi gave her a far greater understanding of their predicament than a "mere" soldier. Aina glanced over at Mission to see how she was taking all this, and the Twi'lek simply responded with a shrug.

It was not long before Aina's patience ran out. "Are you two finished?"

"I apologise," said Bastila. "I'm sure we've all been under a great deal of stress lately. We should get some rest, and tomorrow we'll decide on a course of action. Though there's still the matter of the Twi'lek and Wookiee you've been travelling with."

"Mission and Zaalbar agreed to help us in exchange for...financial compensation," said Aina.

"Hey, I was just joking about the credits! That's not really why I came with you. I mean, busting into the Vulkar's hideout, taking out their leader, freeing their prisoners...it's not like you get to do something like that every day!"

"Well, we're grateful for your help, regardless," said Carth. "We likely won't be coming back to the Lower City, so I guess you don't have any more reason to stick around with us."

"You know, if it's all right with you, I think I _will_ stick around with you guys. Most people in the Lower City are only looking out for themselves, but you...you're not. And I get the feeling you're gonna need my help."

Though Aina did not think Mission was lying to them, she strongly suspected that the real reason the young Twi'lek wanted to accompany them was simply to get off Taris and see the rest of the galaxy, and she could hardly blame her for that. She had seen enough of this world to last several lifetimes.

Surprisingly, Carth was amenable to the idea. "We're going to need all the help we can if we want to get off this planet. But I don't think aliens are allowed in the Upper City, Mission."

"Oh, they let Twi'leks up there all right, usually just so they can have us dancing in some sleazy cantina. And as for Big Z, well, I'd like to see someone try to tell him where he can and can't go!"

"Wait," said Aina, having a sudden realisation. "The Sith are searching for Bastila; is it truly wise to return to the Upper City? That was where we saw most of their soldiers."

"I wouldn't worry about," Bastila replied, dismissing her concerns with an air of easy confidence. "The Force can easily cloud the minds of the weak-willed."

_Though you obviously couldn't do so with the Black Vulkars,_ she thought, but she was in no mood to argue with her. "Then let us be off, then."

* * *

Sleep did not come to Aina that night, and it was not because of Zaalbar's breathtakingly loud snoring (though that certainly was not helping matters). The idea that she might be Force-sensitive was so disturbing that she tossed and turned in her bed and could not find rest no matter how she tried. Would this mean she could become a Jedi? That was not something that stood within the prospect of belief. The Jedi did not train adults, though that had not stopped them from training Irenaceus (as disastrously as that had turned out). She thought back to that moment on the _Endar Spire_ when she had seen a Jedi engaged in battle, and how she had known at that exact instant that she too would possess that power. At the time she had dismissed as a mere fantasy, but now...

She closed her eyes and tried to feel the Force, but she had no idea how one was _supposed_ to feel it. Was it something that controlled your actions? Was it the ability to sense things before they happened? Was it feeling the connections that bound together all living things within the universe? Was it all these things? Her ignorance of the matter confounded her, yet the possibility of becoming a Jedi gave her a thrill she could scarcely describe. If such a thing were to come to pass, it would make her, as far as she knew, the only Echani Jedi in the galaxy. That would be a terrible responsibility indeed.

After nearly a half-hour of trying to feel something, _anything_, that would reveal her connection to the Force, she gave up and finally drifted off into sleep. But sleep brought another vision, a continuation of the one she had experienced just after landing on Taris.

Again, she saw Bastila facing her opponent, who could only be Darth Irenaceus. He had lost his arm in the preceding battle, though he treated the injury as if it were a mere flesh wound. She then saw that Bastila was accompanied by three other Jedi, and they advanced upon the wounded Irenaceus.

"You cannot win, Irenaceus," said Bastila coldly. "Surrender."

Irenaceus took her demand as an insult. "_Surrender?_ You spoony bint! A Sith _never _surrenders!" He reached down and picked up his severed arm. "Here's your frakking surrender!" He then threw his arm at Bastila, who was so surprised by this that she failed to dodge the flying limb, and it hit her squarely in the face. That let Irenaceus catch her off-guard, and with a wave of his hand he sent her and her Jedi followers flying across the room and plummeting down an elevator shaft.

"You see, Karath?" he said, turning to the Sith officer. "So much for the 'Jedi Prodigy'. I guess her Battle Meditation was no match for the sheer power of the elevator shaft." He froze, suddenly realising something. "Wait, do you think those other Jedi might have broken her fall? Eh...let's get out of here in case she comes back!"

* * *

On the bridge of the _Leviathan,_ Irenaceus stood with his arms crossed, looking down at the world of Taris with growing contempt. Another day had passed and they were no closer to locating Bastila, leaving Irenaceus in a state of utterly intolerable boredom. After a few seconds of consideration, he had decided on a course of action.

Admiral Karath walked up behind him. "You summoned me, Lord Irenaceus?"

"The search for Bastila is taking too long. _Destroy the entire planet!"_ He followed up his proclamation with a fit of high-pitched laughter, having waited ages to say those words. "We'll use that stockpile of nuclear warheads we bought from that military surplus shop we visited a few months ago. It's the only way we can top what we did back on Telos!"  
Karath retreated slowly. "But milord...there are billions of innocent civilians on Taris...not to mention our own troops still on the ground..."

He whirled around to face the admiral, and began rubbing his thumb and index finger together. "You hear this, admiral? This is the galaxy's smallest vioflute, playing just for the people of Taris. And I don't have to remind what would happen to you if you defied my will, do I? Yes, that's right, _I'd kill you in an indescribably horrible way!"_

The admiral was aghast the prospect of annihilating an entire world, but he meekly submitted to the will of the Sith Lord. "It...it will take several hours for us to position the fleet, milord."

"Whatever. Just get it done; when the nukes fly, I want nothing less than _complete...global...saturation! _When we're done, I want this planet so radioactive it will glow in the frakking dark!"

"It...it will be done, milord."


	6. Everything Deader Than Everything Else

**Author's Notes**

_I'm pleased to note that this story has, since its posted, received about 700 hits. Now, that might seem like a pathetically small number (_Inglorious Bosh'tets _and its sequel have each received around 70,000 hits), but keep in mind that the demographics of this site are **horrendously** biased against Gen Fic (that is, any story that does not focus on romance or relationships)_. _Don't believe me? The Harry Potter section is the largest __fandom represented on this site, with 25,458_ _pages of stories. Of those, 14,257_ _have "Romance" as one of their genres._

_Simply put, if this story had been a bit of fluff involving Carth and a female Revan, it likely would have received ten times the number of visitors it has. It sucks, but there's nothing one can really do about it, except hope that some readers out there will be interested in something besides which character is shagging whom._

_As for this story, I'm seriously considering killing off either Carth or Bastila. Or both. Or neither. Which will it be? Only way to find out is to keep reading!_

Chapter 6 – Everything Deader Than Everything Else

* * *

"Carth, I wish to ask you something."

Aina's words made Carth cast her a fearful glance. "Yes, what?"

"I am curious...is this truly the Bastila we have been seeking for the past few days? Have we not, in fact, found someone who merely happens to share her name?"

His expression changed to one of puzzlement. "I'm not sure I follow."

She crossed her arms and looked over at Bastila, who was still asleep. "After our escape pod crashed, the two of us, lacking any ability in the Force, managed to find our way through the slums of the Lower City, fight through the rakghouls of the Undercity, infiltrate the Black Vulkar hideout, and free Bastila from captivity. Meanwhile she, a Jedi, was captured the moment her pod landed, somehow lost her lightsaber, and was completely unable to free himself from captivity despite her Jedi training. And you tell me that this is the woman upon whom our entire war effort depends? So far I am not impressed."

Carth sighed. "I'm beginning to wonder if there's anything in this galaxy that _does_ impress you."

"And that is not all, Carth. I wish to know why it is you have so little trust in me. You expect me to stab you in the back; what have I done to give you this expression?"

"I thought we went over this," he said with an irritated growl. "It's nothing you've done, I just _don't trust people!_ Why can't you just leave it at that?"

"I am Echani. You insult me by suggesting that I am given to treachery."

His eyes blazed. "And you've been insulting me ever since we landed on this planet! Look, I'm a soldier and I know my duty; I'll fight this war alongside you if that's what I have to do, but don't expect me to share my entire life story with you. I don't trust you, and to be honest, I don't like you much, either. I think you're arrogant and wilful, you constantly question everything I do, and you don't do anything to inspire the trust you keep demanding from me. So why don't you just mind your own business, and stop acting like I owe you some explanation!"

"So you do have some spine, then. Good."

Carth was more confused than taken aback at her remark, and he quietly walked over to the other side of the room. There was about a half a minute of awkward silence between them until Mission awoke, sparing them from further discomfort.

"Can't remember the last I time I went to sleep in a bed," she said. "I mean, a bed that's actually _clean. _And I bet Big Z's gonna be glad he won't have to pick bugs out of his fur."

After the five of them were fully awake, they began discussing ways of getting off Taris. "It don't see why it's so complicated," Bastila began. "We simply find ourselves a ship and make a run for it. The Sith fleet is dedicated to fighting capital ships; a small craft should be able to slip by them. I'm still surprised that you haven't figured this out already."

"Sith ships typically have auto-targeting cannons equipped as a close-in weapons system," said Carth. "Even if we could find a ship, we'd get shot to pieces before we left orbit."

Aina offered the first suggestion. "I may be ignorant of the mechanics of space travel, but could you not simply activate a ship's hyperdrive in the atmosphere, bypassing the Sith fleet?"

Carth shook his head. "A hyperdrive won't work inside a planet's gravity well. We'd have to be well clear of Taris before we could make the jump to hyperspace, which means going through the Sith fleet."

Mission provided the obvious advice. "What if you just flew past the Sith ships really, _really _fast?"

To Aina's surprise, Carth actually considered her proposal. "That could work, if you flew fast and erratically enough, you just might make it past them. I don't know if that's a risk I'd be willing to take, though."

"There is another possibility," said Aina. "We could simply wait until the Sith give up looking for Bastila and leave orbit."

Bastila immediately shot this idea down. "I doubt the Sith are going to stop looking for me; I'm simply too important to the Republic. They'd sooner destroy this planet than let me escape."

A loud banging on the apartment door silenced their conversation. The first thought on everyone's mind was that the Sith had tracked Bastila to this apartment, and now they had come to take her away.

Aina drew her vibroblade and cautiously approached the door, while Bastila and Carth stood to the side. The knocking came again, more insistent this time, and Aina held her breath as she opened the door. If the Sith had found out Bastila was hiding here, they would surely send Force-sensitives to deal with her, and there was no hope standing against such power.

But there were no Sith awaiting behind the door, just a single Twi'lek. "Pardon me, my good lady," he said, speaking Basic with an exceedingly posh accent, "but would you happen be the woman who defeated the Commander in the duelling ring and, if word on the street is to believed, assassinated the leader of the Black Vulkars?"

"I am, but...who are you? What is your business with me?"

"Ah, forgive me, I have completely forgotten my manners. I represent one Davik Kang, a consummately upstanding and legitimate businessman. He is most impressed with the skill you have demonstrated, and wishes to offer you...employment...for the Exchange."

_Davik Kang, the one who __possesses the Ebon Hawk. _She recalled Mission describing that vessel as a fast ship...possibly fast enough to break through the Sith blockade. "I am afraid I have travelled little beyond my own homeworld...tell me of this 'Exchange'." She knew enough to know that the Exchange was a thoroughly contemptible collection of individuals, but she wanted to hear his side of it.

"The Exchange is an interplanetary philanthropic organisation dedicated to improving the lives of the poor and downtrodden throughout the galaxy. Unfortunately, we have been the target of a vicious smear campaign that claims we engage in such dubious practices as slavery, extortion, and most heinously of all, software piracy. Now, this may be true, you see, but it is only true from a very skewed point of view."

Aina raised an eyebrow. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"It's quite simple, really," said the Twi'lek. "What they call 'slavery' is simply our program of offering jobs to the unemployed masses, keeping them out of the gutter and off the street. And we do not engage in 'extortion'...but rather, we encourage personal responsibility amongst the businesspeople of the galaxy by ensuring that a portion of their profits are diverted to our organisation, which redistributes it to the less fortunate. And the ridiculous claim that we engage in software piracy? Well, the Exchange believes that information ought to be free and not in the grasp of some soulless corporate entity. So, as you can plainly see, my good lady, by joining the Exchange you would be helping to make the galaxy a better place."

Aina was forced to admit that this was a very impressive bit of logical gymnastics. "But I am a warrior. What use could a 'philanthropic' organisation have for someone like me?"

"Ah, there are many ways you could serve the Exchange," he said. "Our...activities...often take us into dangerous and lawless places, and there are many misguided individuals who seek to hinder our efforts. Someone with your skills would be very successful in bringing peace, charity, and goodwill to those crying out for a better way of life."

She looked back at her companions. "Then I will meet with this Davik Kang, but you must know that I never travel without my comrades-in-arms, and that we always go fully-armed. I take it this will not be an issue?"

"No, of course not!" he answered with a laugh. "Now, if you'll follow me, we can take my airspeeder to Davik's estate. That is, unless you want to risk taking the Taris public transport system!" The Twi'lek followed up with a mocking laugh that sounded more disturbing than amusing. Aina took this to mean that, like so much else on Taris, the public transportation system was thoroughly nightmarish.

(This was not an exaggeration. The Tarisian nobility would be never be caught dead travelling in anything but high-end airspeeders, and since the government of Taris ruled almost exclusively in the interests of the wealthy, the public transportation system was poorly-funded and generally decrepit. Their vessels were almost always dirty, unreliable, and piloted by drivers who were either intoxicated or high on spice, leading to the all-too-common occurrence of transport vessels plummeting from the sky and sending passengers to their horrible, screaming deaths. It had been this way for so long that the hellish transportation system was considered an "integral fixture of Tarisian culture" by the people, and there was absolutely no political will to change it).

Davik's lackey continued to praise the Exchange in ways that grew more unbelievable the more he spoke. "The Exchange is active all across the galaxy, particularly on worlds such as Nar Shaddaa where poverty is rampant. I can't imagine how much worse peoples' lives would be without us to lift them out of their misery and despair. We post more bounties than any other organisation in the galaxy, bringing to justice criminals that would be far out of reach out the Republic."

"And did you have some business with the Commander?" she asked out of curiosity.

He let out some particularly colourful bit of Twi'lek profanity, which mainly referred to hypothetically dubious parentage of the Commander. "We used to employ him as a bounty hunter, but his violent behaviour soon became a liability. He'd find any excuse to go on a killing spree, and he didn't care about how much collateral damage he caused trying to capture his bounty. To put it succinctly, he had become an embarrassment for us. With any luck, his defeat in the duelling ring will be such a blow to his reputation that people will be more reluctant to make use of his...services."

"He confronted me in the Undercity," she said, "and was devoured by a rancor. The only use he'll be now is as fertiliser."

"Ha! A suitably ignoble fate. I am certain Davik will be pleased."

Davik's lackey brought them to a large, open-top airspeeder that was parked in a crowded landing platform. This particular airspeeder was constructed from metal polished to a mirror sheen, and the front proudly bore the triangular logo of Kuat Vehicles, a subsidiary of Kuat Drive Yards dedicated to producing suborbital vehicles. Aina assumed that this had to be a rather high-end model of airspeeder, though she knew next to nothing about what constituted "high-end" amongst those who enjoyed a lifestyle of conspicuous consumption.

They all climbed into the airspeeder, which could easily accommodate the six of them. Zaalbar, however, expressed some hesitancy, requiring some goading from Mission. "Oh, just get in, you big baby!" Mission herself regarded the prospect of travelling by airspeeder as a consummate thrill, and when it took to the air she looked about the skies with a mixture of awe and terror.

Despite his sophisticated manner, Davik's lackey flew the airspeeder like an absolute maniac, aggressively weaving in and out of traffic, displaying an utter disregard for the safety of his passengers (who were not strapped in or restrained in any way that could keep them from being violently thrown from the vehicle), and flying at such a high rate of speed that a collision with another airspeeder would be surely fatal for all involved. Aina maintained a stoic expression in spite of the sheer terror she was experiencing, which reminded her unpleasantly of her escape from the _Endar Spire._ Like so much of the idiocy she had seen since landing on this world, she assumed that deranged driving behaviour was yet another staple of Tarisian culture.

(This, too, was not inaccurate. Those who travelled by airspeeder consisted largely of the upper classes of Tarisian society, who were sufficiently rich and well-connected as to be virtually immune to prosecution. Not that was any sort of enforcement of traffic laws, of course; since the wealthy objected to being governed in any way, the skies of Taris were essentially a free-for-all. The sight of a mangled airspeeder plummeting to its doom was not looked upon with horror, but with a sense of smug satisfaction that the Tarisian traffic system had weeded out yet another unworthy individual. "If we seek to aid every single driver on Taris by imposing things like 'traffic laws' on them, then we will only weaken them...and weaken ourselves," said one prominent Tarisian noble. "It is the struggle of every driver that yields the richest rewards. If we _truly_ care for them, if we _truly_ want to do something about the hundreds of thousands of traffic fatalities per year, then let us dispense with pity and recognise the value of letting them fight their own battles against a sky full of _total bloody lunatics._")

It was only a matter of minutes before they touched down on a landing pad that jutted out from one of the countless skyscrapers that stretched to the horizon. At first, this building looked completely indistinguishable from the rest, but when Aina exited the airspeeder she began noticing that something seemed _off_ about the place. The platform leading from the landing pad to the entrance was painted a hideously garish shade of fuchsia, and things did not improve once the Twi'lek brought them inside.

The landing platform led to a large antechamber, and upon entering Aina's eyes were instantly barraged with the most offensive array of colours imaginable. _Everything_ here was pink, the wall, the floors, the ceiling, even the uniforms worn by the guards. And it was not just one shade of pink, either, but it ran the gamut from a deep purple to an off-white colour, yet all hues were equally displeasing to the eye. The differing shades were arranged into odd geometric patterns that seemed carefully arranged to be a visually unsettling as possible.

"This is a very...interesting...scheme of interior decoration," said Aina, trying to mask her disgust.

"I am glad you think so," said the Twi'lek. "You will find that Davik is a man of both great wealth and taste, one who is dedicated to ensuring that guests enjoy themselves to the utmost during their stay. On this level you'll find the Gambling Pits and the Dancing Pits, and below are the Duelling Pits and the Whore Pits. There's something for everyone!"

He led them further into Davik's estate, which did not bring any improvement to the scenery. After some minutes they were brought to the guest quarters which, to Aina's immense displeasure, did not show any more restraint than the rest of the place. In fact, the guests quarters were somehow _more_ repulsive, with the walls adorned with badly-drawn artwork depicting nude women of various species (mercifully, no Echani were depicted in a shameful state of undress).

"Please, make yourself comfortable while I go and tell Davik you've arrived."

As soon as the door had closed, Mission made her opinion of this place known. "_Ugggghhh! _My eyes are going to start bleeding if I have to stay here much longer!"

"I assume you have some sort of plan," Bastila said to Aina. "Or was there some other reason that you brought us to the estate of a notorious crime lord?"

"We heard a rumour in the Lower City that Davik possesses a ship, the _Ebon Hawk,_ which might be fast enough to break through the Sith blockade."

"And how do you plan to obtain his ship? Are you going to ask him nicely?"

Her mocking tone made Aina want to reach over and give the Jedi a good smack. "I am not sure, but I am certain an opportunity will present itself."

"Whatever we're going to do, we'd best be careful," Carth added. "I've heard a lot of horror stories about what happens to people who cross the Exchange."

Davik did not appear for almost fifteen minutes, and when he finally showed up Aina wasn't quite sure what to make of him. He was an older man, going grey and bald, and there was nothing about him that suggested he was in any way a threat. Yet he bore a relaxed look of easy confidence and walked with a definite swagger that indicated he was someone used to getting his way. Whatever bravado he possessed, however, was completely undone by his armour which, like everything else in this place, was coloured a very bright shade of pink. Aina was unaware that Davik had spared no expense in ensuring that his armour offered the utmost protection against blaster and melee weapons, and she had not heard the rumour that he had ordered the death of the one who created the armour, so that no one else could have a suit of similar design. No, all she could see was that _his armour was pink._ Then again, she reasoned, anyone who went into battle wearing bright pink armour had to be someone who knew no fear whatsoever.

"Ah, you must be the woman who defeated the Commander in the duelling ring, and rid us of that despicable little upstart Brejik. But I do believe introductions are in order, miss...?"

She stood up in a such a way that impressed upon Davik just how much taller she was. "You may call me Aina, if you must. Your associate told me your organisation wished to employ me. If so, then speak your offer."

"Straight to the point, eh? I like that; if there's one thing I can't stand, it's minions who shift from foot-to-foot. Come, I'll give you a little tour of operation while my men run a background check."

"Background check?"

"Just a simple precaution. Someone in my position can never be too cautious; we've caught more than one undercover Republic agent trying to worm their way into the Exchange. Once we've determined that you're trustworthy, you'll be given an invitation to join our little family. It would be unwise to refuse."

_So much for an 'offer', then!_ she thought. Just then Aina noticed that Davik wore an energy shield on his right arm, one that was clearly made by an Echani judging by its appearance. How had he acquired such a thing?

"Come along, then," said Davik, "and remember to follow exactly in my footsteps; there are many activities going on here that not for neophytes to know. As you rise in the ranks you will be made privy to some of more, shall we say, 'hands-on' operations."

She had no desire to find out what he meant by that.

* * *

"Is the fleet in position, admiral?"

"Yes, milord."

Irenaceus crossed his arms. "You know, I really do love nuclear weapons. Just the thought of all those little plutonium atoms, all getting ripped apart, somehow making a really big _boom..._well, it just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. When you absolutely, positively _must_ make everything deader than everything else...accept no substitutes! The people of Taris won't know what hit them! Admiral, open a channel to the rest of the fleet."

"It will be done, milord," he replied meekly, still clearly distraught at the prospect of seeing Taris consumed by nuclear fire. _He wasn't so squeamish about bombing Telos, _Irenaceus thought. _Perhaps the admiral is going soft? Maybe I should have him tortured for my own amusement._

"A big, warm greetings to all our Sith brethren from the bridge of the _Leviathan,_" he began. "Sadly, I most begin this broadcast with an upbraiding, one directed towards our forces on the surface of Taris. They have failed to locate the Jedi Bastila, and given the threat she poses, this has left me no other choice to but to obliterate the entire planet. I cannot begin to convey how disappointed I am at this turn of events, especially considering all the great suggestions I've received regarding the best method of torturing Bastila, some of which were just gut-bustingly hilarious! But for those of you fortunate enough to have remained aboard the fleet, I want to cast your eyes down towards Taris, which will soon be _completely destroyed!_ Sadly, we cannot make Taris' sun go supernova, but we're working on that!"

The fleet had been arranged in a ring around the planet's equator, so that every ship could target any point on the planet's surface between the north and south poles, and so that the entire surface of Taris could be bombarded at once, preventing anyone from escaping. Each ship was stockpiled with hundreds of high-yield thermonuclear warheads, purchased at a bulk discount from Mirv the Mandalorian's Military Merchandise, which was considered _the_ place to go for arms and equipment in the Outer Rim. ("Some people say we're crazy for selling weapons of mass destruction at such low, low prices!" Mirv the Mandalorian proudly declared. "And they'd be right! Our prices are literally _insane!_")

"Now, before you commence the bombardment, admiral, I'd like to have a little musical accompaniment...preferably some stirring orchestral number with a thundering choral section. How about Petraana Livaka's _S__ymphoni__am_ _Tracto ex Culo? _Just remember not to start the bombing until about two minutes in, because that's when it gets _really_ good."

Muttering curses to himself, Admiral Karath went off to fetch this particular recording. He considered the destruction of Taris wholly unnecessary and a contemptible waste of life, but what could he do against the whim of a Sith Lord, a man who could choke the life from with but a thought? Karath considered Irenaceus a blustering fool who would only bring the Sith to ruin, and he was consumed with thoughts of how to remove him from power. He had not defected from the Republic just to be led about by an imbecile. But how could he bring this about? Karath did not have a Force-sensitive bone in his body, though that was not necessarily a disadvantage. Irenaceus believed that the admiral was so thoroughly cowed by his power that he would never betray him, and Karath would do nothing to discourage that line of thinking. Not until it was too late for Irenaceus, that is.

* * *

"And here we have my pride and joy, the _Ebon Hawk._"

_What a hideous vessel! _Aina thought. "Flying brick" were the first words to come mind when she laid eyes upon it. The ship looked to her like little more than a brown and grey slab with various protrusions jutting out of it, and the whole thing had been designed without a single thought towards form or symmetry. To her eyes, it looked so incapable of flight that she thought it would plummet to the ground the second it left the hangar.

"I apologise, Davik, but I must say that this is a very ugly ship, regardless of its capabilities."

Instead of being offended, he simply laughed. "It is, isn't it? You know, I like your honesty. The people who come to me are usually obsequious sycophants, and while I like a good boot-licking now and then, it's good to meet someone who isn't afraid to speak her mind. Now, on to the next part of our operation-"

"Wait, there is something I would like to know," she began, subtlety reaching back for her vibroblade. Davik's armour looked sturdy indeed, but it had one crucial weakness – it offered no protection for the neck.

"Oh, and what would that be?"

She glanced around the hangar and saw that there were no guards present. _And t__he hangar doors are open...we could simply fly the ship out._ "I see that you possess an Echani energy shield. How did you come across such a thing?"

"A bit of a tale, that is. To make a long story short, one of your kind was making a nuisance of himself, sabotaging Exchange operations throughout the Outer Rim. Me and some of my associates managed to track him down, and his meddling ways came to an end when I planted my blade in his gut. He had this energy shield, for all the good it did him. They're great at protecting yourself from blaster fire, you know, but they're no good against melee weapons."

At that instant Aina made her move. She drew her vibroblade and swung it at Davik in one continuous motion, the blow aimed squarely at his neck. Before Davik could even flinch the blade cleaved his head from his body, cutting through flesh and bone like a hot knife cutting through snow. His body crumpled to the ground in a shower of blood, making Aina's companions recoil in horror.

"No, they're not," she said flatly, staring down at Davik's headless corpse. She sheathed her blade and knelt down to retrieve the energy shield from Davik's arm, thinking of the nameless Echani this vile man had slain. _You are avenged, whoever you were._

Carth, predictably, was less than pleased with this sudden and brutal act of violence. _"__What the hell are you doing?"_ he cried. "Do...do you make a habit of just...just flipping out and killing people?"

Her voice was emotionless. "I was getting the ship for us," she said, starting towards the _Ebon Hawk's_ boarding ramp. "Follow me, then."

But things were not going to be that simple.

A searing blue-white flash erupted from the horizon, so brilliant and overpowering that they were forced to turn away lest they be blinded by the sheer intensity of it. Aina felt a wave of heat come over her, and for the next few seconds she fumbled around in confusion, not understanding what was happening. The light was so strong, so terrible in its power that it felt as it were shining _through_ them all, and when it began to subside they saw before them a sight straight out of a nightmare.

A fiery mushroom cloud was rising into the air, and Aina was left frozen and speechless. Having trained only in the art of the blade, her mind was not prepared to deal with the mind-buggering horror of nuclear warfare. The fireball continued to rise, turning from yellow to orange to red, bathing the sky in a hellish glow. It was as though the planet's molten core had come up to the surface, said "What's going on up here, then?" and, not liking what it found, had decided on destroying everything in its path.

"The Sith are bombing us! Get to the ship!" Carth screamed, and everyone bolted for the _Ebon Hawk_ so quickly that they nearly fell over each other trying to get up the boarding ramp.

The inside of the ship was cramped, consisting of circular corridors that were barely high enough for stand up in. She followed Carth who, for the first time since they had met, actually looked like he knew what he was doing. He led them to the ship's cockpit, which to Aina's eyes was an incomprehensible jumble of switches, buttons, readouts, and computer displays. But Carth was in his element here, and he quickly sat himself in the pilots chair and, with the flick of a few switches, brought the ship's engines to life.

"I can't believe it," he exclaimed, staring down at one of the consoles. "They swapped out the engines on this thing! I didn't think you could fit the DFX-5000 series into a _Dynamic-_class freighter!"

Bastila looked like she were about to hit him. "Carth, stop admiring it and _get us out of here!"_

"Uh, right."

With a shrill whine the _Ebon Hawk_ lifted into the air, and Carth skilfully manoeuvred the craft out of the hanger and into the skies. But a second later the shockwave from the nuclear blast slammed into the ship, nearly driving them into a nearby skyscraper before Carth regained control (after unleashing a storm of exceedingly-creative profanity, naturally). He throttled up the engines, and the _Ebon Hawk_ accelerated with such ferocity that Aina was pushed against the rear bulkhead, and for a second she wondered if Carth were really capable of flying this thing. But it was Zaalbar who was having the worst time of it; the Wookiee was clearly unused to space travel, and he continually howled his displeasure at everything that was happening.

Gathering her wits, Aina moved to the front of the cockpit, and when she looked out of the cockpit glass the full horror of their situation was revealed. The re-entry streaks from hundreds of nuclear warheads blazed across the sky, each one terminating in a blossom of atomic fire. As the _Ebon Hawk _climbed higher, one could see sweeping barrage creeping over the surface of Taris, vaporising and pulverising huge swaths of the ecumenopolis. From up high it looked very much like a fire spreading through dry grass.

Through the Force Bastila could feel the death of every person on Taris as their flesh was burnt from the bones by the searing heat of the nuclear inferno. The strain far too much for her to bear, and with a groan she collapsed. There was no time to tend to her, however, as there was still the matter of the orbiting Sith fleet, who would surely blow them out of the sky the second they got in range...

The _Ebon Hawk_ lurched to the side as Carth suddenly changed course. "What are you _doing?_" Aina said, her cold tone masking the rising terror she was feeling.

"The Sith fleet is positioned around the equator," he said as frantically worked the controls. "If we fly up from the planet's pole, we can stay out of range of their guns. Typical Sith, always thinking in two dimensions!"

* * *

On the bridge of the _Leviathan, _Irenaceus stared down at Taris and waved his hands about, playing air conductor to the bombastic symphony playing over the ship's speakers. _"__Marvellous!"_ he squealed. _"Absolutely marvellous!"_

In a matter of minutes the blue-green world of Taris had been utterly enveloped by the raging firestorm, with not a single square meter of the planet's surface left untouched by their bombardment. "See, admiral?" he said, turning to Karath. "That surely tops Telos, wouldn't you say?"

"Of...of course, milord."

A crewmember called to him from below. "Admiral, we've detected a ship leaving the planet!"

"_What?" _Irenaceus raged. "You mean someone _survived_ all that?" He had even more reason to be displeased when he reached out through the Force to the fleeing vessel and sensed Bastila's presence aboard. "Bastila is on that ship, I just know it! I could sense her self-righteous aura from across the galaxy! Scramble fighters to intercept!"

Admiral Karath shrank back. "Um...milord...we...we sold all our fighters to pay for those nuclear warheads we just used on Taris..."

That was sufficient to take the wind out of Irenaceus's sails. "Oh, did we? Well, uh...that was terribly short-sighted of us, wasn't it? We'll have to have the fleet pursue them, then."

"We can't, sir!" replied the nameless crewman. "The ship's on a polar trajectory; we'll never be able to reach them before they jump to hyperspace."

The words might as well have been complete gibberish to the Sith Lord. Irenaceus glanced down at Karath. "What does he mean, admiral?"

"He means that the ship is flying up, milord."

"Flying...up?"

"As in, moving in the third dimension, milord."

An awkward silence fell over the bridge as Irenaceus tried to visualise what the admiral was saying. "Wait, do you mean to tell me that space has _three_ dimensions?"

"Yes, milord."

Irenaceus threw up his arms. "Well why didn't anyone _tell_ me this before? I'm a Sith Lord, people, not a bloody astrophysicist!" But all his protests were in vain, and he could only stand there and watch as the lone ship jumped to hyperspace, putting Bastila out of his reach once again.

One would have expected a Sith Lord to respond to this outcome of events with anger and fury, mercilessly slaughtering his underlings for their failure. Instead, Irenaceus burst out laughing, a long, hearty, raucous fit that lasted nearly a minute, while everyone else on the bridge wondered what had gotten into him and, more importantly, which of them was going to wind up being Force-choked to death when he was finished.

"Milord?" said Karath, confused.

"Oh admiral, it's so...so funny!" he gasped between bouts of laughter. "We...we..." He pointed out the window at the world below and began laughing again. "We just killed _everybody _on that planet_, _ ex...except the _one person we wanted to! _You can't tell me that's not hilarious!" It took another minute or so for Irenaceus to regain his composure, and even then he occasionally let out a girlish-sounding titter. "You know, there's nothing saying you can't laugh at your own failures. Of course, if anyone _else_ laughs at my failures, I'll kill them."

"Shall we cease the bombardment, milord?"

Irenaceus thought it over for a few seconds. "No, continue until we use up every last nuclear warhead. Never leave a job half-done, I say. And I'm sure the people of Taris had it coming, anyway"

And though he did not say it, Irenaceus was secretly delighted that Bastila had escaped the destruction of the planet, for it meant he would have another chance at abducting her and turning her to the dark side.

_And when she is finally turned, she won't be strutting about in those dreadful Jedi robes any more,_ he thought. _No, like __a proper Sith lady, she must dress the part...a tight leather corset that displays generous cleavage...thigh-high boots...black lingerie when she's in the bedroom...oh yes..._


	7. The Masters of None

Chapter 7 – The Masters of None

* * *

The mood on the _Ebon Hawk _was sombre and grim as the ship shot through the ethereal realm of hyperspace. Mission, understandably, was taking it the worst, and she had retreated to the ship's cargo hold along with her Wookiee companion. Aina thought it would be cruel of her if she did not attempt to offer to some words of consolation, but what could she possibly say? She was not used to speaking with people undergoing such a traumatic experience, and she feared that her words would be clumsy and callous.

Carth was dismissive of the young Twi'lek, thinking her to be little more than some teenage thug, but Aina sensed that the girl held a great deal of potential that had been stifled living in the Lower City of Taris. She knew how to handle a blade and how to survive in a violent, hostile environment, and perhaps with some training she could become a great warrior. That was assuming that Mission even wanted that sort of life, however.

Aina sat herself atop one of the large cargo crates. "It must be terrible for, to lose your entire world," she said, realising the second after her words have left her mouth that she sounded hopelessly pathetic in her attempt to console the Twi'lek.

"I'll be all right, really," she said, though the pain in her voice was obvious. "Living in the Lower City taught me that I shouldn't get too attached to people or places, because they'd always end up going away in the end. I guess Taris is just something else that went away."

"That doesn't diminish the enormity of what the Sith did."

"Yeah, I mean, I knew the Sith were evil and all that, but this whole thing just really rubs it in your face, you know? I just want to know why they did it."

"They wanted to find Bastila," Aina explained. "From what I have heard, she is of great importance to the Republic war effort and, being unable to locate her on Taris, the Sith opted to destroy the planet's surface in the hopes of killing her. But even then they failed, and so they accomplished little but senseless slaughter. The Sith wish to rule the galaxy, but what is the use of ruling when all the galaxy lies in ashes?"

Mission gave her a confused glance. "You mean, they killed everyone on the planet just to get one person? That's insane...no...that's not just insane...that's like some whole new level of crazy there's not even a word for."

"They follow the dark side; would they act any other way?"

"The...dark side? I'm sorry, I don't really know much about the Force. It wasn't a big issue for me in the Lower City, if you get my drift."

"I don't know much myself, but amongst my people we call it 'the ruinous power,' because it brings both ruin to one's enemies...and oneself. There is little doubt in my mind that the Sith are more likely to be destroyed by their own hand than by the Jedi."

The _Ebon Hawk_ shuddered slightly, for reasons Aina did not want to think about. Some sort of hyperspace turbulence, perhaps? (If such a thing even existed).

"It's strange, travelling in space," Mission remarked. "I haven't done it since I was five years old, back when we first left for Taris."

"Oh? You weren't born there?"

"No, I was born on Nar Shaddaa, though I don't really remember much of it. I guess my parents must have died when I was really young, 'cause I don't remember them, either."

_What a terrible thing to suffer through,_ she thought. "Then who was it that raised you?"

"My brother, Griff. He taught me everything I know, how to spot an easy mark, how to slice into a computer, how to use a blade, all that stuff."

While Aina did not approve of criminal behaviour, she felt no desire to lecture Mission now, especially given what she had just been through. "Why did you leave for Taris?"

"My brother, he was always running some crazy scheme, trying to get ahead, trying to make some big score. But no matter how hard he tried, nothing ever seemed to work out. Then one day he tells me that we have to leave Nar Shaddaa without ever telling me why...I get the feeling he must have owed a lot of money to the wrong people. But we couldn't afford passage off-world, so Griff had us stow away in a shipping container, with just enough food and water to last the trip. And when got there, Griff couldn't wait to get up to his old tricks again."

"I take it he was no more successful on Taris than he was on Nar Shaddaa?"

"No, he wasn't. But still, he looked out me for me, and we were probably better off than most people in the Lower City." Mission's face suddenly folded up into an angry glower. "Until Lena showed up that, that is."

"Who was Lena?"

"Just some floozy he met in a cantina somewhere," she said, her voice filled with resentment. "I think she was a dancer or something. Anyway, they started dating, and for a while I was happy that he'd found somebody. But then I found out that Lena was just some marshsucker out for blood; she only cared about the money she could get from him. I kept telling him that she was no good, and he'd just laugh in my face. But Lena, she was used to dating those rich Tarisian nobles; there was no way Griff could ever make enough to money to make her happy. It turns out he was borrowing credits to make himself look richer than he was, and when he couldn't pay up, he had to run away, just like he did on Nar Shaddaa."

"He did not take you with him?"

"No, he didn't! Griff said he couldn't afford to take me, but I knew he was lying; Lena just didn't want his 'bratty little sister' tagging along. He said he'd come back for me, and that he'd have a whole load of credits with him and we'd live large in the Upper City. But he never came back."

"Are you sure that he had no intention of returning? Perhaps he met an unhappy fate somewhere."

"Oh, I know what happened! Lena had Griff wrapped around her finger so tight, all she had to do was bat an eyelash at him and he'd do whatever she said. She convinced him to leave Taris without me, then took his money and dumped him. Who knows where he's got to, now!"

Aina was less than convinced. "But how do you know that this is what happened?"  
Mission frowned. "Are...are you saying you don't believe me?"

"No, but we have a saying among my people, that a story told by one is only half a story, and many prefer the worse side of a story that has two versions. It would seem to me that the only way to find the truth of this situation would be to locate your brother and hear his side of the tale."

"Yeah, but...how would I find him? I mean, one person in the entire galaxy? Where would I even start?"

"True, but I would not jump to conclusions in the absence of facts."

An awkward silence passed between them for a few seconds. "So, I guess since I've told you my entire life story," said Mission, "I think it's only fair that you tell me yours."

"I'm afraid my life is far less interesting than yours," Aina began. "I was born on the Echani homeworld of Eshan, the oldest of three children. At age seven I was sent to the Silver Mountain Monestary, where I was trained in the way of the warrior. That was my home until I joined the Republic war effort. That is all there is to know about me."

"It must be nice to have a home and a family to go home to. Me? I got no idea what I'm going to do now that Taris is gone. I mean, everything I ever knew was there."

"Well, you still have Zaalbar at your side."

"Yeah, I don't know what he'd do without me. I think he's got a family back on Kashyyyk, but he can't ever go back."  
"You mean he is an exile? What was his crime?"

"I don't know, and Big Z doesn't like to talk about it. Not everyone likes telling their entire life story to people, you know?"

Aina stood up. "I suppose I should see if Carth and Bastila have decided what we are to do...though in all likelihood they have decided to bicker with one another."

When she reached the cockpit, her suspicions were proven correct.

"Dantooine?" Carth whined. "You don't think that will be the first place the Sith will come looking for you?"

"We can't keep running forever, Carth. Even the Sith would think twice before attacking the Dantooine Enclave; it is home to some of the most powerful members of our order."

"Does that include Irenaceus, who was taught there?" said Aina as she stepped into the cockpit. "Or the Jedi Exile?"

Bastila shot her an angry look. "The decision to train Irenaceus was a mistake, I will admit, but the Exile..." She trailed off for a moment, as if she herself were unsure of what to think. "I would not mention his name to anyone the Enclave; Kiven is a...controversial individual amongst the Jedi, to put it mildly."

"Then let us stop here, then, if only to spare me more of this cursed travelling through space!" Aina could not put her finger on what, exactly, it was about space travel that made her feel so uncomfortable. Perhaps it was the lack of truly solid ground beneath her feet, or the subtle, barely imperceptible motion of the ship itself. Whatever it was, she would be glad to set foot planetside.

"Then I'll set us down at the Jedi Enclave," Carth said. "And I think you'll find Dantooine a bit more to your liking than Taris."

"Will I now? Just try not to crash the ship; I would be rather...displeased...should this vessel share the same fate as all the others you have served on."

Bastila gave her a puzzled look. "What are you talking about?"

"You do not know? According to him, every vessel he has ever served on has wound up destroyed; the _Endar Spire_ just happened to be the latest."

Until this point, Aina had never seen Bastila express fear, but her words make the Jedi look positively terrified. "Carth, is this true?"

"Look, if you read the Republic incident reports, you'll find that I was officially cleared of any wrongdoing in every one of those cases. It's just my bad luck, that's all."

Neither Aina nor Bastila found this at all reassuring.

* * *

Irenaceus' furious giggling filled the bridge of the _Leviathan, _and everyone sat with bated breath, fearing what would happen next. They knew that the Sith Lord was of a rather mercurial temperament, and for the past half hour he had been doing nothing except laugh incessantly, which usually meant that he was about to do something thoroughly horrific.

As usual, it was Admiral Karath who bore the brunt of Irenaceus' erratic behaviour. "Milord, I fail to see what you find so...humorous...about this. The Star Forge requires the solar energy to function; moving it will require us to cease its operation until we can find a new energy source."

Irenaceus dismissed his complaint with a wave of his hand. "Of course I know that, you fool!" He quickly resorted to yet more high-pitched laughter. "But you just don't get it, do you? Can you...can you imagine the look on Bastila's face once she tracks down the Star Forge, and she finds _nothing!_ A pity I won't be there to see it!"

Karath backed away. "But how will she determine its location, Lord Irenaceus?"

"Not the brightest lightsaber around, are you? Look, it's quite simple, really. Bastila may be a self-righteous little slag, but she's no fool. The Jedi Council on Dantooine knows that Alek and I explored the ruins near their enclave, and I am sure that they will send Bastila to investigate them. There she will find the Star Map, which will lead her to other Star Maps, which together will lead her right to the place where Revan and I discovered the Star Forge. Only, there won't be anything there 'cause we...we..." Irenaceus was overcome with laughter, and unable to speak for nearly a minute, all the while Karath looked on with barely-disguised disgust. "...because _we've moved it!"_

"I fail to see what is so amusing about that, Lord Irenaceus."

"Well that's because you're a complete simpleton, admiral," he said, striding to the front of the bridge. "But the rest of you think that's hilarious, don't you? Don't you?"

No one made a noise.

This was too much for him, and he instantly launched into an angry diatribe. "Oh, son of a tied down Gamorrean sow..._what's __the matter__ with you people?_ We're _Sith! _We embrace our passion and emotions, we don't hide from them like some misery guts Jedi who can't stand the thought of someone actually enjoying himself, no! We know that the drive for pleasure and excitement is the only true purpose in life, but it would seem that _some_ of us don't understand this most basic principle. Just look at my idiot apprentice Bandon if you want to see what I mean. I remember watching him practice the signature Sith art of Force lightning, and he had this miserable scowl on his face like he was passing a kidney stone. And all that time all I could think was, 'You gloomy sod, you're _throwing bolts of lightning from your hands like a god of thunder,_ and you're _unhappy?_ What the ever-loving _frak_ is wrong with you?' Well, they say that the cream rises to the top, so I guess we know which stratum _he_ occupies." His rant finished, he whirled around to face the front of the bridge, where the Star Forge dominated the viewport. "You know, admiral, I never realised how ugly that thing is. It looks like some big dead crab that washed up on a beach somewhere."

"And where do you plan to move the Star Forge to, my lord?" As usual, Irenaceus had left the admiral completely in the dark regarding his latest scheme, impressing upon Karath the utter superfluousness of his position.

"To the one place Bastila will never find it, of course. The Star Forge receives power not only from radiation emissions, but on the power of the dark side itself. That is why I am moving it to the Malachor Supernova Remnant."

The mere mention of Malachor made Karath shudder. Even amongst the Sith, Malachor had a fearsome reputation. It was a place where the life-giving sun had been snuffed out, where whole planets had been completely and utterly shattered, and where the Force itself bore an open wound. The only people who had willingly gone that accursed place were astronomers and astrophysicists, who hailed the Jedi Exile as a hero, because it wasn't every day that one had the opportunity to study the effects of a supernova first-hand.

"But, without a star, milord..."

"First of all, admiral, the radiation from the black hole's accretion disk will prove to be a sufficient power source, I'm sure, and they will also serve to hide the Star Forge's thermal emissions from any prying eyes. There is simply no way the Republic will be able to find it once we move it to the Malachor Supernova Remnant. And that place is also a powerful nexus of dark side energy, which shall only make the Star Forge stronger. Plus, I've never seen a black hole before. So quit your whining and let's get that thing moving!"

This precaution was, as far as Admiral Karath was concerned, wholly unnecessary. A detailed analysis of the Star Forge revealed that it was essentially indestructible; its molecular structure was locked in place at the subatomic level, rendering it virtually impervious to harm. The Sith engineers who had examined the Star Forge had come to the conclusion that it could shrug off a supernova explosion and emerge totally unscathed, and there was no way the Jedi or the Republic could possibly destroy it. The Star Forge even lacked any sort of self-destruct mechanism that their enemies could exploit. Moving the Star Forge was a waste time, the admiral reasoned, but Karath had no desire to argue with the Sith Lord, as that activity bore a high risk of getting him hurled down an elevator shaft.

Karath cleared his throat. "There is something else, Lord Irenaceus. Since you have requested that Bastila be taken alive, I have contracted the services of a pair of bounty hunters whose reputations are second to none."

Irenaceus spun around and presented the admiral with a look of great anger. "Admiral...do you mean to tell me... you _went over my head?"_

Karath instantly began shrinking away. "No, milord, I...just...I mean..."

The Sith Lord suddenly burst out laughing. "Relax, admiral, I was just frakking with you. Bring in these bounty hunters of yours."

The first bounty hunter was so odd-looking that Irenaceus had to force himself not to laugh when Karath brought him in. He was exceedingly short, which would be laughable enough, but he wore an absurd-looking pair of goggles on his face, the purpose of which Irenaceus could only speculate on. "And who is this, then?"

"This, milord, is Calo Nord, one of the best bounty hunters in the galaxy-"

"I'm _the_ best bounty hunter in this galaxy," the little man interrupted. "And that's not me bragging, that's fact."

"Em...yes. He was on Taris during our blockade, and managed to survive our nuclear bombardment of the planet's surface."

Irenaceus looked sceptical. "And how did he accomplish _that?_"

"Apparently he took shelter inside a portable refrigeration unit, milord."

"I am hard to kill, Lord Irenaceus," added Calo.

The other bounty hunter was heavily-scarred man clad in black armour that was not only brutally beaten and scuffed, but also looked as if it had been partially eaten away at by some sort of corrosive substance. His hair was close-shaven in the typical military style, and his face was every bit as scarred as his armour. The man had clearly undergone some form of cybernetic augmentation, and his eyes glowed with a baleful red light.

"And the other one?"

"This," said the admiral, "is the Commander. I am certain you know him by reputation. He too was on Taris during our blockade."

"And how did_ he_ survive the bombardment?"

The Commander explained it himself. "I was in a rancor's stomach at the time. Its body shielded me from the blast."

"But how did you get out of the rancor, then?"

He looked away. "You don't want to know..."

"So these two are to compete with one another to find Bastila, are they? Very well, let's just hope they kill each other trying to be the first one to catch her. Now, Admiral, bring me the cam droid; I believe it is time for another broadcast to the troops."

Karath sent the two bounty hunters away and returned a few minutes later with the camera droid in tow. The droid powered up, switched on its spotlight, and began transmitting to the rest of the fleet while Irenaceus assumed his affable broadcast persona.

"Hello and welcome from the bridge of the _Leviathan._ You might have noticed that I'm beginning this broadcast a bit early this week, and this is because there is very much I want to tell you all."

"Let me begin with some good news and some bad news. The good news is that our fleet truly outdid itself during the bombardment of Taris, where we successfully reduced the entire planet's surface to radioactive ashes. The bad news is that somehow, against all probability, Bastila managed to escape the nuclear inferno we unleashed. But fear not, fellow Sith, for I believe this to be a blessing in disguise! See, had Bastila been killed in the bombardment, I would not have the opportunity to torture her until she is turned to the dark side. And in a few minutes I'll be reading out some of the wonderful suggestions I've received regarding just what I should do with her once I have her in my clutches. But first of all, I will answer some of the many, many questions I have received since my last broadcast."

"Our first letters comes from one Napali Shaana, an apprentice at our academy on Korriban. She asks, _'Dear Lord Irenaceus: What would you say is the most memorable fight you ever had?'_ An excellent question! It's very easy to answer that, of course; the fight I remember most clearly has to be my duel with Yusanis, some famous Echani general who was disgraced after he fathered an illegitimate daughter with a Jedi. You'd think that hooking up a power coupling with a Jedi would score you a lot of points with people, but I guess Echani are just funny like that. Anyway, in the hopes of redeeming himself he challenged me to single combat, and of course I couldn't back down from something like that. But the thing is, Yusanis had no Force-sensivity; all he had was his lightsaber-resistant cortosis blade. I thought I would cut him down in seconds with my obviously superior combat ability, but somehow he put up a real fight, even managing to wound me! I suppose his reputation as one of the greatest duellists in the galaxy was well-deserved, but all his skill didn't avail him when I Force-lightninged him to death. That some pasty, Force-deaf twit could actually hurt _me, _a Sith Lord, made me so furious that once Yusanis was dead I cut off his head and sent it to his bastard daughter with a note that read 'Sith Happens'. Though in retrospect, I may have crossed a line there..."

"Our next letter comes to us from an anonymous Jedi who is considering defecting to our order...truly the only wise decision he can make! He asks, _'I've heard that, once you turn __to__ the dark side, your body begins changing. Is this true? If so, what sort of changes will I experience?' _Hmm, I think we can put this soon-to-be-ex-Jedi's fears to rest, shall we? Now, it _is_ true that the dark side does cause some changes in a person, most noticeably their fashion. For instance, you know how the Jedi wear those horrendously unfashionable brown robes? Well, if you're a man, once you embrace the dark side, the urge will be to wear less brown and more black. For women, the urge will be to wear less, period. Of course, there will be _some_ other physical changes, but these largely minor and completely unnoticeable unless you _really_ look for them. And compensating for all this is the way joining the dark side massively increases one's sex appeal. For example, Revan once posed nude, and if you looked upon such an image, your eyes would melt out of your skull from the sheer erotic power of Revan's naked body."

"Our final letter comes to us from one Jani Korr, and she asks, '_Dear Lord __Irenaceus: __Okay, this is probably a really __dumb__ question, but I have to know: was Revan a man or a woman? I've never seen any pictures of him or her, and no one can give me a straight answer. So which is it?'_ Well Jani, I like to think that amongst the Sith there are no such things as 'stupid questions', just questions that we'll mock you for behind your back. Anyway, to answer your question, Revan was most definitely a-"

Suddenly a shrill whine filled the air, followed by a burst of static. The camera droid began sparking and smoking, then fell to the floor with a loud _clank._ "Apologies, milord," said Karath. "The camera droid appears to have suffered a repulsor failure."

"Then don't just stand there; get it fixed! I'm losing valuable air time, here!"

"It will be done, milord."

* * *

Looking out of the cockpit of the _Ebon Hawk,_ Aina quickly deduced that Dantooine would be far more hospitable than Taris. From orbit, she could ascertain that the planet consisted mainly of vast plains and steppes, separated by wide stretches of ocean. When the _Ebon Hawk_ descended to a lower altitude, she could make out individual farms and small, isolated villages, with no large cities or settlements to be seen. In that way it was very much like her homeworld of Eshan, which only made her all the more eager to reach the surface.

"There is something I must tell you, Bastila," she said. "I apologise for not telling you earlier."

"What is it?"

"When I first awoke on Taris, I had just experienced a dream...a vision...of you fighting Irenaceus, though I had never seen your face before then. Some time later, I experienced another vision...where Irenaceus hurled you down an elevator shaft."

A moment's look of embarrassment flashed across her face. "Yes, you're right, you _should_ have told me this earlier. Such visions are not uncommon amongst Force-sensitives, and it was likely that what you saw was one of my more intense memories."

"Wait," said Carth with a laugh, "so are you saying that you were _hurled down an elevator shaft?"_

"This isn't funny, Carth!" she snapped, glaring at him before turning back to Aina. "One thing you must understand about Irenaceus is that he appears to be little more than some childish imbecile; and that's what he is, really, but he is exceptionally strong in the Force. I made the mistake of underestimating him, a mistake that I will not make again, I assure you."

"I guess there's nothing like the combination of great power and great stupidity," Carth added.

"That's not the only reason why Irenaceus is a threat, though. Some people turn to the dark side out of a lust for power. Some turn to the dark side with the noblest of intentions. Irenaceus turned to the dark side because he _thought it would be_ _fun._ I doubt very much there's any chance of redemption for one such as he."

Soon the blackness of space was replaced by the blue skies of Dantooine, and Aina breathed a sigh of relief when she felt the ship touch down. When she reached the _Ebon Hawk's_ boarding ramp, Mission was already there, clearly eager to experience this new world. With a loud _hiss_ the ramp descended, and for the first time since leaving her homeworld Aina breathed in air that was neither heavily polluted nor sterile and processed.

Taking care not to hit her head on the way down the ramp, she stepped into the sunlight. The air was warm, but not unpleasantly so, and all around her was a vast expanse of farmland and pasture, very similar to the equatorial regions of Eshan. Enormous winged creatures flew through the sky, larger than anything she had ever seen, and in the distance she saw a pair of farmers walking with a number of large, horned creatures following behind them (she would later learn that these were domesticated kath hounds).

"Wow," said Mission, gazing up at the sky. "Look at all this space, and all this sky! I feel like I'm going to fall up into it if I don't hold on to something!"

Ahead lay the Jedi Enclave, and the sight of it made her heart sink a little. In her mind she had imagined the home of the Jedi to be some towering, magnificent structure like the Silver Mountain monastery on Eshan, but instead she was presented with an edifice that looked quite drab and unimpressive, being constructed primarily out of dull, grey duracrete. _Perhaps it is more hospitable on the inside,_ she thought.

Mission spoke what Aina was thinking. "So, uh, this is where the Jedi live? It's looks kinda...boring." This earned her a reproachful glance from Bastila, but the Jedi said nothing.

From the landing pad Bastila led them past a heavy set of metal doors and into a wide courtyard, where several pathways branched off. To Aina's surprise there were no insignias present, and nothing to indicate to whom this structure belonged. Instead it was exactly like the exterior of the enclave, which made her heart sink even further. There were a few Jedi walking about, and while some of them turned to look at the seven-foot-tall Echani who had just strolled into their midst, none of them so much as bothered to greet them.

_In the Silver Mountain monastery, hospitality was sacred. Is that not the case here?_ she wondered.

Yet it was more than just the lack of a greeting that was putting her on edge. There was an aura to this place, one that was not exactly welcoming. It was a tension in the air, a feeling of latent hostility that lingered all about the enclave. _You are an outsider,_ it seemed to say. _You are not welcome here._

"The council chambers are just ahead," said Bastila. She then began pointing to the various passageways leading away from the courtyard. "Over there are the dormitories, and that way are the younglings' quarters."

Aina stopped. "'Younglings?' I do not know this word. Does it refer to some sort of livestock?"

Bastila frowned. "Wh...what? No, that's simply what we call children."

"Then why not call them 'children', then?"

She looked annoyed at this question. "It's...tradition. Look, there are more important thing at hand. I must speak with the Jedi Council regarding the events at Taris, and the issue of your Force-sensitivity. Wait here until I return."

With her curt words, Bastila ran off into the heart of the enclave, leaving the rest of them to stand and wait outside. _If this were Eshan,_ Aina thought, _we would have been welcomed inside and speaking with the __master of the house by this time. Does this place not regularly receive guests? __Do they even know _how_ to receive guests?_

And there was the issue of Bastila herself. Aina had only known her for a few days, yet she had already formed a profoundly negative perception of the woman. On the surface, she appeared calm and emotionally-restrained, but this was only skin-deep. It was clear that it did not take much to annoy and irritate her, and Aina guessed that it would not be much harder to drive her to anger, something that could hardly be considered desirable for a Jedi. She might have found Carth to be an insufferable bore, but at least she did not get the impression that he was concealing his true self from her.

"Not exactly the warmest welcome in the galaxy, is it?" said Carth after a few minutes of silence. "Everyone here seems to be ignoring us."

"Indeed," Aina replied. "This would not be acceptable in any household on my world. I do believe Bastila informed the Jedi Council of our arrival before we landed; surely they could have sent at least one person to greet us?"

Nearly a half-hour later Bastila returned. "The Council has agreed to speak with you," she said, "but I'm afraid, Carth, that you and the others must wait here."

Aina followed her into the compound, while Carth and Mission remained outside, looking rather peeved at all this. The inside of the enclave was a bit less dreary than the exterior, with a few dashes of colour here and there and the occasional bit of greenery, but there was nothing that changed Aina's initial impression of the place. The hostile atmosphere did not diminish, either, rather it was even stronger inside. It was reinforced by the icy stares of the Jedi who passed by them, who looked upon Aina like she was some freakish alien creature.

But it was more than a sense of hostility, there was something fundamentally _wrong_ about this place, though she could find no words to describe this particular sensation. Perhaps she was merely feeling the presence of so many Force-sensitives around her, and she thought no more on the subject. Instead, her thoughts turned to the possibility of becoming a Jedi. Aina was certain that the Jedi Council would say no, but she was tormented by the possibility of them saying _yes._ Joining the ranks of the Jedi would be the most significant event in her life since she had gone to the Silver Mountain monastery, although that assumed she even _wanted_ to be a Jedi. Already the cold, sterile atmosphere of the enclave was giving her second thoughts.

Bastila eventually brought her to a large, high-ceilinged, circular chamber where the Jedi Council was gathered. Like the rest of the enclave, the chamber was austere in the extreme, possessing absolutely decoration or adornments of any kind, and to Aina's eyes it was more akin to a tomb than a training academy. The oddly-small "council" consisted of only four individuals: a Twi'lek, two human men, and a member of what had to be the strangest alien species Aina had ever laid eyes upon. He (at least she assumed it was a "he") was short, less than a metre in height, with large eyes, pointed ears, and wrinkled brown skin.

"This is the Jedi Council," Bastila explained. She first named the two human men, "Master Dorak, Master Vrook Lamar," and the Twi'lek, "Master Zhar Lestin." She then named the strange little man, "And this is Master Vandar Tokare."

Aina was unsure of how to greet people of the status of Jedi Master, having been given no instructions regarding the etiquette of the enclave. Fortunately, the diminutive Jedi Master spoke first.

"So, you are the Echani Bastila has told us about," he said in a curious, raspy tone of voice. Being so short he was unable to look Aina in the eye. "Forgive me for not speaking with you eye-to-eye, to do so would require me to...snap my spine in two."

"Yes," added Master Dorak, "Bastila has told us much about you, including your rescue of her from the Undercity of Taris. Very impressive for one with no training in the Force."

"Bastila has spoken true," she answered, standing tall and proud, towering over the Jedi Masters. "I am Aina Kaamos of the Most Noble Order of the Heart of Winter."

"We've heard much of martial prowess of the Echani," said Master Zhar. "We even had a demonstration, when Atris, a Jedi Historian, visited us a few months ago. She was accompanied by her Echani Handmaidens, who performed the Fire Dance in this very chamber."

_Handmaidens?_ she thought. That was not a title used anywhere on her homeworld, and she doubted that any self-respecting Echani would willingly choose a position that sounded so subservient.

Suddenly, Master Dorak was overcome with a fit of snorting and giggling. "That's not the only thing Atris demonstrated!"

Master Vrook's eyes blazed. "_Master Dorak..." _he growled.

"Ahem, yes. As Master Zhar pointed out, it was truly a remarkable demonstration, with the Handmaidens fighting with such grace and style...moving with such swiftness and precision...their enormous bosoms heaving magnificently..."

Aina took a step back, finding this all very strange indeed. "I believe you called me here to discuss the issue of my Force-sensitivity."

"Yes, Bastila tells us that you and she have shared a vision, and that she has sensed your connection to the Force," said Vandar. "I sense you are very strong in the Force indeed, though it is strange that Bastila did not discover this when she first visited your world."

"I have heard that the Jedi not train adults in the way of the Force," she said flatly.

"You are correct," replied Master Vrook, "and there are many good reasons why this is so. One only has to look at the débâcle of Darth Irenaceus to see why. Adults are simply too set in their ways and too attached to their patterns of thinking for them to be properly trained in the ways of Jedi. I was the only one who spoke out against the idea of training Irenaceus_, _and had this Council followed my advice he would have remained little more than a fifth rate actor, and Master Devros wouldstill be with us."

"But you are Echani," Vandar said, "and I do not doubt that you possess the discipline and focus necessary to undertake the training. And while it is our policy not to instruct adults, these are...exceptional...circumstances. Many of the members of our order have fallen in battle or have been seduced by the dark side. We may have to forsake some of our traditions if we are to have any hope of defeating the Sith."

Master Vrook was aghast at this suggestion. "That was the same rationale we had for training Irenaceus. How do we know this woman won't turn out the same?"

Aina bristled at the suggestion that she was in any way like the Sith Lord, and it took all of her restraint not to lash out at Vrook.

"This is something we shall have to discuss," said Master Zhar. "I believe an Echani would be a formidable addition to our ranks."

"That is yet to be decided," countered Vrook. "If there is nothing else to discuss, then this meeting is adjourned...unless there is something more you would ask of us."

"There is," Aina said. "I believe I know all there is worth knowing about Darth Irenaceus. I am more curious about this supposed master of his, Darth...Revan." The vulgarity of the name was still enough to give her pause. "And I am curious about whether or not he is this 'Exile' I have heard of." She knew that it was unlikely that the Jedi Council would decide to train her, but her curiosity about the Exile and Darth Revan had only grown stronger over the last few days, and the Council seemed the only ones who could truly satisfy that curiosity.

Master Dorak answered her first. "Ah yes, Revan. I'm afraid that there is very little we can you tell you about him...or her...we're not really sure if Revan were a man or woman. Personally, I like to think that she's a woman, one with long legs, large breasts, and firm, taut bu-"

"_Master...Dorak!"_ Vrook hissed through clenched teeth.

Master Vandar attempted to salvage the conversation. "From what we have heard of Darth Revan, he was a dark Jedi of exceptional power and cunning, capable of swaying thousands to his cause. Unfortunately, the only information we have on him comes from the Sith, who have a tendency to exaggerate their members' power and strength."

"Who this 'Revan' was is irrelevant," said Vrook, clearly contemptuous of the whole matter. "Darth Irenaceus slew his Sith master, and there's little point in speculating about the identity of a dead man."

"I have heard it spoken that Revan was the Exile," said Aina.

"You must forgive us if we are hesitant to discuss the matter," said Dorak, "for the Exile is a bitter subject for us. Suffice it to say that he was both the best and worst Jedi that has ever passed through these halls."

She raised an eyebrow. "Best _and _worst?"

"To understand the Exile, you must know the whole story. But I'm afraid that none of us truly 'knew' him; he was always extremely reclusive and seldom spoke to us or any of his fellow Jedi. The only one that could tell what he was truly like would be the one who trained him, Master Atris. Of course, should the opportunity arise, I would not make any mention of the Exile to Master Atris. It tends to...upset her."

"Hmm, indeed," Vrook muttered. "Atris has many virtues, but permanence of mood is not one of them."

Once again Dorak began giggling. "She was a real demon in the sack, though!"

Aina recoiled at his words. "_What_ did you say?" Had a Jedi Master just boasted of his sexual conquests? What sort of people _were_ these so-called 'Masters'?

As before, Vandar tried to salvage the situation. "Uh, what Master Dorak meant to say was that there have been many, um, _demeaning attacks_ made against the character of Master Atris, yet she remains one of the most respected members of our order. However, few share her position that Revan is the Exile."

For the third time Master Dorak was overcome with childish laughter. "Well I've certainly shared a great many positions with her!"

At this point, Master Vrook looked as though he were seconds away from igniting his lightsaber and cutting Dorak down. "_Master Dorak...if you please..."_

Dorak quickly composed himself. "When Master Atris visited those few months ago, it was to discuss the possibility that Revan was indeed the Exile. Atris not only insisted that this was the case, but she also believed that Revan was still alive. I disagreed, of course, and the two of us went back and forth in the bedroom..._boardroom!..._discussing the matter. She insisted, quite vocally, on her position, and so I let her do everything to me. I mean, I let her _tell_ everything to me! But in the end, neither of us could reach any sort of agreement regarding the Sexile..._Exile!_"

_What sort of madhouse have I walked into this time?_ Aina wondered. Though she told herself that perhaps it was only Master Dorak that was unable to control himself. Still, if that were the case, then how had someone such as he reached the rank of Master?

"Master Dorak, perhaps you could tell this young woman about the Exile's life as a Jedi," said Master Zhar, who appeared to be slowly shrinking back from the other three Jedi Masters, as if he were embarrassed to share their company. "It is impolite to discuss the...eccentricities...of Master Atris in her absence."

Dorak cleared his throat and regained his composure. "Very well. The Exile's name was Kiven, and that was his _only_ name as far as we knew; if he had a family name he never revealed it to anyone. He came to Dantooine as a young child in the care of some smuggler, and we could sense his presence the moment he set foot on this planet. We knew right away that this was someone we ought to keep an eye on, and we were adamant that living in the care of some scoundrel was no life for a child. But Kiven did not wish to be parted from his foster father, if you could dignify a smuggler with those words, and we had to force the matter. Perhaps we should have taken this as a sign of the trouble he would cause us."

Master Vandar continued the story. "Kiven was exceptionally strong in the Force, and we do not exaggerate when we say that there was no one in the history of our order who shared his capabilities. From a young age he could perform feats that even a Jedi Master could not, and we began to suspect that his connection to the Force was...unnatural."

"'Unnatural?'" Aina said.

"We've never been able to reach any conclusion regarding his exact nature," answered Master Vrook. "But every Jedi in this compound could sense that there was something..._wrong..._about him. I hate to resort to such crude language, but Kiven was, essentially, a freak. Yet his master, Atris, refused to allow any sort of investigation regarding the cause of his exceptional powers. He was her favoured pupil, though in hindsight we should have suspected that she was more attached to her apprentice than was considered appropriate." He made a pre-emptive frown at Dorak should the Jedi Master make any more references to Atris' licentiousness.

Mercifully, Dorak spared them such juvenile behaviour. "The relationship between master and apprentice is often strained, and as the years passed there grew a noticeable hostility between Kiven and Atris. By the time he left to fight in the Mandalorian Wars, the two of them made no secret of the fact that they despised one another."

"Tell me of his struggle against the Mandalorians," Aina asked, for this was the part she was truly curious about.

"About five years ago, Kiven began insisting that the Jedi should join the war against the Mandalorians, but youth is a time of impetuousness and we paid no attention to his words."

Aina found it difficult to believe that the Jedi could be passive in the face of such an obvious menace. "The Mandalorians are senseless butchers. Why would you shy away from fighting them?"

Her question annoyed Master Vrook. "We understood well enough the threat the Mandalorians posed, but it was our belief that the true threat had yet to reveal itself. Someone was inciting the Mandalorians against the Republic, and we concluded that whatever was behind their attacks hoped to draw the Jedi into the conflict, weakening us and thinning our ranks. Kiven did not believe any of this, and continued to urge us to take up arms. He insisted that countless people were suffering and dying while we were 'lost in supposition about a phantom menace', to use his words. We failed to realise how passionate he was about the matter until he left to join the Republic war effort, and convinced thirty of his fellow Jedi, some _twenty years_ his senior, to follow him."

"Just how old was he at the time?" Aina asked.

"We do not know the date of his birth, so we cannot tell you exactly," said Master Zhar. "But he could not have been more than twenty years of age. If that seems incredible to you, you must understand that Kiven had a method of convincing people that his position was correct, in a way that went beyond mere charisma of persuasiveness. Perhaps 'method' is the wrong word; I do not think he himself was even aware of this effect he had on others. It is likely that this was yet another consequence of his...aberrant...relationship to the Force."

Master Vrook continued, "What happened afterwards is well known: Kiven lead his followers through some of the bloodiest conflicts in the war, culminating in the Battle of Malachor. From what we've been able to piece together, the Republic expected to find a small, lightly-defended outpost. Instead, they stumbled into the bulk of the Mandalorian fleet. Seeing that they were hopelessly outmatched, Kiven trigged a supernova in the Malachor star before fleeing to hyperspace. We do not know if he had assumed control of the Republic fleet by that point, or if he were acting on his own initiative."

"And how did he manage to destroy a star?" said Aina.

Master Vandar quickly rebuked her. "That is not something we can reveal. We can only say that we have taken steps to ensure that such power can never again be used."

Vrook carried on with his account of the Exile's actions. "When the star went supernova, it obliterated every planet and every ship, both Mandalorian and Republic, in the Malachor system. The death toll was...staggering. But Kiven did not anticipate the effect so much loss of life would have on his followers. Through the Force they felt the dying agony of countless millions, and it killed them all, save Kiven himself. When he returned to us, his ship was filled with the lifeless bodies of those he had so foolishly led astray. We do not know why it was that he alone lived, though we knew it had to be because of his peculiar connection to the Force."

Aina crossed her arms. "I may not know much about the galaxy beyond my homeworld," she said, "but I do know history, and I know that after the Battle of Malachor the Mandalorians issued their unconditional surrender. The war ended that day."

The Jedi Masters looked at each other. "There are many in the Republic who hailed Kiven as a hero," said Vandar. "For that reason we knew we had to be extremely delicate in how we handled him. Some of us argued that he should be executed for the enormity of his actions, but that is not the way of the Jedi, and we knew that having him put to death would only make him a martyr. So we decided that he would be severed from the Force and exiled to the Outer Rim."

"But the death he wrought did not stop there," said Vrook, his voice suddenly turning even more bitter. "The Jedi who were to cut him off from the Force perished in the attempt."

"Did Kiven kill them?" she asked.

"No, he did not. He accepted his punishment, but when we tried to break his connection to the Force the results were..._ghastly._"

"I'll say!" Dorak exclaimed. "It took us days to clean their innards off the walls!"

"Master Dorak," Vrook growled, "I would speak with you in private after we are finished here..."

"Since we were unable to sever him from the Force," said Zhar, "we were left with exile as the only punishment for him."

"A foolish decision," Vrook declared. "Kiven never wanted to be a Jedi, that much should be obvious, and by exiling him we _rewarded_ him, not punished him. And now we have a former Jedi running loose in the Outer Rim, one whose strength in the Force surpasses anything we have ever encountered. Can you imagine the destruction Kiven would wreak should he fall to the dark side?"

"Well, we did send Jedi to track him down every now and then," Dorak explained. "Knowing his immense power, we wanted to keep an eye on him, and every time we located him he was doing little else but drowning his sorrows in some filthy cantina on some backwater world. But about two years ago, he suddenly dropped off the grid, and we were unable to find him. Combined with the stories we've heard about Revan's incredible power, you can see why many thought that Revan and Kiven were one and the same. However, Atris is the only who believes that Revan, whoever he was, is still alive. She's a bit crazy like that. Although I should have realised that after she tied me to the bed. Er, I mean, she _tried to fill my head_ with all her ridiculous notions about the Exile!"

By this point, Vrook had had enough. "We will decide later, Aina Kaamos, whether you are fit to be trained in the ways of the Jedi. Until then, I suggest you return to your ship."

The Jedi Masters departed the chamber, although Master Zhar lingered to give Aina a remorseful glance, silently apologising for the behaviour of his associates.

The second they were out of earshot of the Jedi Masters, Aina voiced her displeasure to Bastila, who had remained silent all throughout the meeting. "This is the Jedi Council? 'Master' Dorak could not restrain himself from boasting of his sexual conquest of another Jedi Master! I do not disapprove of such relationships, but to speak of them openly, and in such puerile terms, is utterly shameful!"

Bastila did not reply for several seconds, no doubt trying to find some way of justifying the Masters' behaviour. "I agree the Master Dorak was out of line, but you must understand that the Jedi Council has been under a great deal of stress lately. They have seen scores of Jedi fall to the dark side; Irenaceus being the most obvious example, and the Jedi High Council has recently launched an investigation into why so many acolytes of this enclave have turned away from the light side. All this has worn away on their nerves, I'm sad to say."

"But is it not only the behaviour of the Jedi Council that bothers me. When we arrived at this place, we were greeted very rudely, though it is more accurate to say that we were not greeted at all. Instead, we were completely ignored. Is this what passes for hospitality amongst the Jedi?"

As Aina predicated, Bastila's face got all scrunched up. "What...what does the _way you were greeted_ have to do with anything?"

"It means you have have either forgotten your sense of etiquette, or you never possessed it in the first place. On Eshan, no one would dare treat a guest the way you have, even if that guest were a hated enemy."

"Well this is _not_ your homeworld, and you would do well to remember that if the Jedi Council decides to train you."

She gave a contemptuous _hmph. _"This place would 'do well' to have an Echani in charge, and the first thing she would do is make some changes to the décor. I swear, whoever constructed this building had a deep, unrequited love for the colours grey and brown."

Bastila looked at her with disapproval, but said nothing.

* * *

Falling asleep on the _Ebon Hawk_ proved no easier than it had been in that dingy apartment back on Taris. The bed was uncomfortably stiff and too short for her, and the cold, dark walls of the ship were constricted and claustrophobic. But none of those were the true reason she found herself tossing and turning. If the Jedi Council were to offer her the chance to become a Jedi, what would she say? Had someone posed the question to her a few days ago, her answer would have been an unequivocal "yes," but her unpleasant experience with the Dantooine Enclave had filled her head with doubt. Perhaps it was only _this_ enclave that was like this, and it would be unfair to judge the entire Jedi order on that basis alone, but she was sceptical of that idea.

_If fate wills it, then I shall become a Jedi,_ she reasoned. It was the Echani belief that no one could stand against her fate, and it was pointless striving to change what had to be. But if she were to join the order, she swore to herself that she would not let it change who she was, that she would not end up like Bastila, a woman who concealed her true self beneath a mask.

"So, what did the Jedi Council say?" Carth asked just seconds after she had crawled out of bed. He was drinking some foul-smelling brew out of a mug, something that smelled of rotting vegetation.

"They said they would discuss the possibility of training me; I imagine they've reached a decision by now. They also told me a great deal about the Singing Jedi."

"'Singing Jedi'? You mean the Exile?"

"Do you know any other Jedi who sings?"

Carth sighed. "I don't know why you find it so strange that he happened to be a singer. Don't you Echani have musicians on your world?"

She stared at him, incredulous. "Of course we do! Why would you think otherwise?"

"I don't know," he replied with a shrug, "you don't seem like a very musical people to me."

Again she stared at him, not believing the stupidity of what he was saying. "I am one woman; you judge my people based on me alone? I am a warrior; I do not win battles with a clarinet."

Their conversation was interrupted by Bastila, who had spent the night in the enclave. "The Jedi Council wishes to speak with you. I believe they have reached a decision regarding whether or not your are to be admitted to the order."

"The tale of the Singing Jedi was not the only thing I learned from the Council," Aina said to Carth as they headed towards the loading ramp, speaking loud enough for Bastila to overhear. "Tell me, have you ever heard of the Jedi Master Atris?"

He shook his head. "No, I can't say that I have."

"Well, one of the Jedi Masters let it be known that he had had carnal relations with her, and I strongly suspect that, whatever sort of person this Atris is, that this Jedi Master was not the first man she had lain with."

Bastila whirled around, furious with Aina's words. "The behaviour of one Jedi Master does not reflect the Jedi as a whole! Despite what you have experienced, members of the Jedi are not allowed to form any sort of..._romantic_...attachment to others."

Aina snorted in disgust. "Do they now? You might as well try telling the sun it is not allowed to rise in the morning. _That's_ as attainable."

"There is a very good reason why we forbid such relations," she explained in that condescending tone she loved so much. "And the vast majority of us abide by that tenet."

"I may be a stranger to the galaxy, but I am not naïve, Bastila!" she said, stepping towards her so as to make obvious the difference in height between the two women. "I can assure you that at any moment countless Jedi throughout the galaxy are violating this absurd tenet of yours. Do you honestly think that Master Dorak and Master Atris are the only ones?"

"Enough! You are not a not Jedi, and you do not understand. And if I were in your position, I would rein in this..._attitude..._of yours should you join our order; it will do you no good."

Her opinion of Bastila having sunk even lower, Aina followed her out of the _Ebon Hawk_ and into the courtyard. In but a few minutes her fate would be decided, and her doubts and misgivings began swirling about in her head with ever greater fervour. Would being a Jedi mean being trapped in this dreary place? Would it mean having to put up with unwanted advances from her sexually-frustrated comrades?

The four Jedi Masters had once again gathered in the council chamber, and Aina's heart pounded with anxiety as she walked in. If they asked her to join them, would she have the courage to say "no?" Would they even accept "no" for an answer?

Master Dorak spoke first. "I feel I must apologise for my behaviour the previous day. It is simply that your appearance reminds me so very much of Master Atris, and it fills me with desire for her for beautiful white hair, her deep blue eyes, and her firm, ample breasts-"

Aina expected Master Vrook to chastise Dorak, but all he did was put his palm to his face in a display of resigned exasperation.

Master Vandar spoke next, and Aina sensed that the news of her fate was forthcoming. She held her breath in anticipation. "You should know that we have come to a decision. After many hours of civil debate-"

Dorak made a sputtering noise, trying to fight back a burst of a laughter, giving the lie to Vandar's claim that their debate had been at all "civil."

"-after many hours of civil debate," Vandar continued, "we have decided that it is in our best interests... that you be instructed in the ways of the Jedi..."


	8. Doubt

Chapter 8 – Doubt

* * *

"The Force is not silent. It is wordless."

Master Zhar had spoken much since her training began, but those were the words that remained in Aina's mind. The first step in becoming a Jedi was opening herself to the Force, yet that seemed to her an insurmountable obstacle.

"There is a reason the Jedi typically begin their training in childhood," Master Zhar explained, "and it is not only so that we may instil them with our values. The mind of a child is open to things an adult's mind is closed to, and they are willing to accept and believe things a grown man would dismiss as impossible. And belief is crucial – if you don't believe you are capable of something, you will never achieve it."

The two of them stood inside a sparring chamber, as evidenced the cushioned mat laid out on the floor. She knew that in the coming months she would be spending a great deal of time here.

"When Bastila first informed me of that I was strong in the Force, I tried to feel it for myself. But I felt nothing in spite of my efforts."

"I am not surprised. You have spent your whole life deaf to the Force's call, and you will not be able to hear it simply by willing yourself to do so. Since you have been raised as a warrior, it is far more likely that you have unknowingly called upon the Force many times before when you were engaged in battle."

"But surely I would have sensed something?"

Zhar shook his head. "You have never experienced the world through the eyes of another. Consider, for example, a man who is colour-blind. He may very well go through his entire life in complete ignorance of his condition, because he assumes that everyone sees the world as he does. So it is that you have gone through life assuming that your abilities were natural and commonplace."

She thought back on the battles she had fought, and recalled the moments when it felt as though time were passing so slowly that she had all the time in the world to strike at her foes. One particular battle stood out in her mind.

"A few days ago I fought a man in a duelling ring on Taris. I was armed with my blade, and he with a blaster. During the battle he fired at me with his blaster as I attempted to close the distance between us, and I used my vibroblade to deflect his shots. I am...unsure...of how I accomplished such a feat. It was as though I did it through mere reflex, without thinking."

Zhar smiled. "I have little doubt that you were calling upon the Force during that confrontation. As I'm sure you know, a Jedi can use his lightsaber to deflect blaster shots fired at him; this is one of the most basic skills a Jedi learns at an early age. The training method is simple: an apprentice is blindfolded and given a training lightsaber, and his instructor activates a small, hovering droid that fires low-intensity blaster bolts at him. In this way the apprentice learns to reject what his sense are telling him and to concentrate on feeling the Force flow through him."

"There is a similar ritual among our people," she said. "A student is blindfolded and presented with her weapon. She must then block every strike her master directs at her, and through this she demonstrates that, with her instinct for battle, she can predict her opponent's next move. We call this 'Battle Precognition'."

"I'm afraid I am not familiar with the ways of your people. Though I certainly do not doubt your martial prowess, as demonstrated by Master Atris' Handmaidens."

"Tell me of these 'Handmaidens', Master," she said with a frown, unable to disguise the contempt in her voice. "That is not a title used by my people."

Zhar was hesitant in answering. "They are Master Atris' response to the large number of Jedi who have fallen to the dark side. The Handmaidens themselves are the six daughters of Yusanis, and have trained extensively in resisting and countering the abilities of Force-adepts. Their purpose is to watch over the Jedi, to remain ever vigilant for any hint of dark side corruption and, if necessary, to strike down those who have fallen. Master Atris believes that all Jedi enclaves should possess a contingent of such individuals, in order to act as a check on our power. I cannot dispute the wisdom of her proposal, though I do think that if we are to have such people watching us, it would be best if they were independent of the Jedi, and not in a subservient position. But this is not the time to speak of such things."

Master Zhar left the chamber, and returned a few minutes later with a seeker droid, a training lightsaber, and a bit of headgear that covered the eyes completely. Without saying a word he handed her the saber, which looked indistinguishable for a normal lightsaber save for a yellow band around the emitter shroud that indicated it was for training purposes only, and was incapable of inflicting any lasting damage.

"Activate it," said Zhar.

She found the activation stud, which required a significant amount of force to depress, in order to prevent a Jedi from inadvertantly switching on his lightsaber and accidentally lopping off a limb or two. Upon pusing the activation the lightsaber came to life, emitting a beam of brilliant yellow light that hummed with energy.

"Take note of how it feels in your hands, in particular, how the centre of mass lies within the hilt. This is different from the vibroblade you are used to, and necessitates a differing style of combat. Fighting with a lightsaber is less about raw strength, as you will not be able to exert much leverage through the hilt. Instead, it is about swiftness, precision, and dexterity; from little I have seen of the Echani fighting style, the skills you have learned ought to mesh extremely well with the fighting style of the Jedi. But all this will come later. Now it is time to see if you can truly feel the Force."

She donned the helmet Zhar had provided her, which not only blocked the entirety of her vision, but also made it next to impossible to hear anything.

"I am now activating the droid," said Zhar, loudly enough for her to hear him through the helmet. "Remember that you must _feel _where the next shot will be coming from, rather than attempting to anticipate it."

Aina gripped the training saber, half-expecting the Force to grab her suddenly and move the lightsaber for her. But all she got for her efforts was a sharp jolt from the droid when she completely failed to block its shot. It was not overly painful, being much like the sting an insect, but it was intensely irritating.

She tried several more times to block the droid's shots, and each time she failed. With the helmet in place she was completely deprived of her senses, and the droid remote was completely silent and unpredictable. It seemed that even her instinct for battle would not avail her. No matter how she tried to reach out and feel the Force, it would not come to her. She expected it would come to her like an onrushing current, bringing into focus everything she had been blind to up to that point, but it was clear that this was precisely the wrong mindset.

"I believe I understand the problem," said Zhar calmly. "First, you are not placing yourself in the frame of mind that you would were you facing a true opponent in battle. Secondly, I sense that you are striving to feel the Force, but you will err as long as you strive. You say that an Echani warrior must face her master blindfolded and block his attacks. Place yourself in the same mindset."

_I have not taken this seriously,_ she thought. She had come to the Jedi Enclave and felt little else but contempt towards it, regarding it as being vastly inferior to the Silver Mountain monastery she had known all her life.

_There is no Jedi Enclave, no Jedi Masters, _she told herself. _There is only me, my weapon, and my opponent. An Echani is never tense,__ but ready...ready for whatever may come. __And when an opportunity appears, I do not strike the blow – it strikes all on its own._

The droid fired at her, and for the first time she saw it despite being blindfolded. It was not truly "seeing" or anything that could be dignified with that word, but rather a sense that Aina had never been fully aware of until now. She moved the lightsaber to deflect the blaster bolts, though it did not happen through any conscious action on her part. Rather, it was more akin to a reflex action, the way she would jerk away her hand if she inadvertently touched something hot.

"You see?" said Zhar with a laugh. "Having the proper mindset is the key. You will find that breaking down the barriers in your mind is the greatest challenge you will face as an apprentice. Today, you have shown that you can use the Force reflexively, but eventually you will learn to direct and control it. First, however, I must see how you use a blade, for that will determine how you will wield a lightsaber. This will require a sparring partner...hmm, since you are already acquainted with Padawan Bastila, I shall summon her."

_A fight against Bastila? This ought to be interesting,_ Aina thought.

* * *

This was precisely the same time that Carth, Mission, and Zaalbar began to suspect that Aina and the Jedi Order weren't quite as good a match as they thought.

Their suspicions began when they first saw Aina and Bastila walking towards the _Ebon Hawk._ Aina was strutting in that confident, assured stride of hers, while Bastila was busy hectoring her incessantly. The cause of her displeasure was obvious – a large bruise over the left side of her face.

Bastila was speaking rapidly, as she usually did when she was angry. "I don't care what Master Zhar says, you're going to have to find yourself another sparring partner."

Aina showed no emotion. "Master Zhar wished to see the Echani fighting style. Did you expect me to hold back?"

"You _kicked_ me in the _face!_"

"An Echani uses every part of her body as a weapon. To rely solely on one's blade is weakness. What if you were to lose your lightsaber? Could you still fight, then?"

Her barb struck true. "I did not 'lose' my lightsaber! It was taken from me!"

Aina ignored her protest. "I do not understand your displeasure. You are a Jedi. If you cannot take a few cuts and bruises, then I suggest you find another occupation."

Predictably, this only made Bastila angrier, leaving her without words. "_You..."_

Carth simply watched all this with an expression of bemusement. "First day in the academy and she's already beating people up. I can only imagine how she would have behaved in a Republic training camp."

Mission provided some unwanted commentary. "Wow, she beat up a _Jedi!_ She must be _really_ good at fighting."

He was not in any particular mood to argue. "I guess she is. I just wish she wouldn't look down on people so much."

"Carth, she's like seven feet tall! Looking down on people is probably second nature to her!"

Carth couldn't help but agree.

* * *

Aina's training progressed rapidly over the next few months, impressing even the most sceptical members of the Jedi Council with her abilities. It was not long before she had developed her own fighting style, combining the second lightsaber form of Makashi with her own Echani technique, as the two shared many similarities. She observed how other Jedi fought, noticing that many relied heavily on the use of the Force in combat, and wondered how well they would fare should they be unable to use their Force abilities. Deciding that this would not do at all, she decided that she would use the Force to augment her own strength and speed, rather than using it as a crutch.

Yet it was not long before the cracks began to show in the façade of the Jedi Order.

The first tenet of the Jedi Code was: _There is no emotion, there is peace. _Aina knew this well, as the Jedi Code was thoroughly drilled into the heads of every apprentice who passed through the Dantooine Enclave. But many of the Jedi seemed unable to follow this precept, as evidenced by the shameful behaviour of Master Dorak during her first meeting with the Jedi Council. Then there was Bastila, the supposed Jedi prodigy, who could easily be moved to anger with a single remark. It was a striking contrast to her life in the Silver Mountain monastery – an Echani knew not to let her emotions control her during a fight, but she did not deny the realness of what she felt. The Jedi, on the other hand, seemed to think that they could simply suppress all emotion, something Aina knew was impossible. She had the impression that their calm, stoic demeanour was but a thin layer over a deep chasm of seething emotions and unresolved tensions.

_Like Bastila, they all wear masks __over their true selves__,_ she thought.

As the weeks passed and her apprenticeship progressed, Aina began growing more and more dissatisfied with the Jedi Order. In all her time here, she had not developed any sort of rapport with her fellow comrade-in-arms at all. Worse, they regarded her with barely-concealed contempt, treating her with the sort of hostility one would reserve for an unwanted interloper. Was it because she had not been trained from a young age like they had? Was it her blunt, forthright way of dealing with others? Maybe that was part of the reason, but Aina sensed there was something deeper at work. Whenever she would talk with another Jedi, whether it was about the war with the Sith or some aspect of the Jedi philosophy, their eyes would inevitably glaze over and they would seek to end the conversation at the earliest opportunity. Not once did anyone attempt to initiate conversation with her, and it soon became apparent that nobody wanted to talk to her. Eventually she ceased making an effort to become acquainted with her "comrades" and decided that they were unworthy of her attention. Aina knew from her experience with Carth that she could rub others the wrong way sometimes, but what could she have done to offend the entire enclave?

Accepting that she was going to be a virtual pariah in the Dantooine Enclave, Aina vowed to continue her training alone.

Every Jedi was expected to spend a portion of every day meditating on the Force and its mysteries (although Aina wondered how many actually followed this suggestion), but even this only aggravated her displeasure. It was not that she had difficulty in sensing the ebb and flow of the Force around her, but every time she closed her eyes and opened herself to the Force the only thing she could feel was a nagging sense that she was treading the wrong path. The Jedi Masters often spoke of "serving the will of the Force," and Aina could not help but wonder if the Force were trying to tell her something.

_There is more to the Force than the Jedi philosophy._ Those words came to her one night as she meditated alone in the cargo hold of the _Ebon Hawk _(with the seemingly unbridgeable gulf between her and her fellow Jedi, Aina had taken to spending the night on the ship rather than in the enclave. So far she had received no rebuke for this, meaning that the Jedi Masters were either unaware of it or they simply did not care). At that moment she knew that she was going to leave this place in the near future, regardless of how much it displeased the Council, for she had experienced one of those rare moments in an Echani's life when she becomes aware of her fate and realises that she must change the path she is on.

Having grown accustomed to being ignored by the other Jedi, Aina was quite surprised when one of them, a strikingly attractive woman with deep, crimson hair, stopped to speak with her one day.

"I've been watching you, Aina" she said in that gentle, kindly usually reserved for grandmothers.

"And who might you be?" Aina replied, with a noticeable tone of suspicion in her voice.

"I am Eliana, a Padawan. I must say, you're the first Echani I've ever met. Atris was here not too long ago with her little flunkies, but on that day I feigned illness and stayed in my quarters. Life is too short to deal with a woman like Atris."

"But why were you watching me? Am I that strange to you?"

"You never speak with anyone else, you don't dine in the great hall with the others, and you sleep in your ship." Her tone was not one of accusation, but rather curiosity.

Aina crossed her arms. "I've received nothing but coldness from the others, and it is clear they want nothing to do with me. I do not know what I've done to offend them, but I have no desire to waste my time attempting to ingratiate myself with them."

"It's not that you've offended them, Aina, but the way you speak with them immediately marks you as an outsider. You've been asking them a lot questions; the _wrong_ sorts of questions, I might add."

She scowled at Eliana. "What are you talking about? The only thing I have asked them are questions regarding the Jedi Code, their philosophy, and-"

Eliana cut her off. "That's what I mean when I say the 'wrong' sort of questions. I specifically recall you asking one individual about Odan-Urr's revision of the Jedi Code and whether or not that meant the Code was to be interpreted differently, or whether the change was merely a clarification of the original intent. And I also distinctly remember you asking several people whether our prohibition against intimate attachments could ever be really be enforced, and you expressed complete contempt for the idea."

By this point she was becoming rather annoyed with this woman. "Those seem perfectly legitimate questions to me!"

"Don't misunderstand me, I understand perfectly why you ask these things. You are an adult, and all this Jedi business is new to you. It is natural for you to question it and find fault with it. But the people in this enclave have lived here since they were children, and have learned to accept the Jedi philosophy without question. When an outsider like you comes here and starts asking the kinds of questions that you've been asking, well, it makes them uncomfortable, to put it mildly."

Aina was thoroughly taken aback by this revelation. "So _that_ is why you only train children!" she exclaimed. "You want an empty vessel that you can fill with your 'philosophy' and that will never ask inconvenient questions! How thoroughly cowardly of you!"

"Keep your voice down!" Eliana hissed. "I'm not saying I disagree with you. In fact, I'm just like you."

"Are you now?"

"Look, the Jedi Order isn't what it used to be, to put it in the simplest possible terms. Not all of us agree with that course we're on, but we're in the minority, and there's nothing we can do about it." She reached inside her robe and took out a small, black datapad. "This was written by the Kiven, the Exile, about a year ago. It's an essay...a manifesto...if you will. He says what's wrong with the Order far better than I ever could."

Aina took the datapad from her and glanced down at it. The title was rather provocative.

"_Why The Jedi Failed?_"

"Don't let anyone see you with it; it's one of those things the Jedi Masters have forbidden us to read."

She stepped back. "What? Do you mean to tell me that there are things were are not _allowed_ to read? Do they think we are children?"

"They say that reading 'forbidden' things may lead to the dark side," said Eliana. "Though they say that about a lot of things."

Aina quietly tucked the datapad into her robes. "Did you know the Exile?"

Eliana looked sorrowful for a moment. "I guess you could say that...I guess you could also say that I was the closest thing he had to a friend."

"'Closest thing?'"

"One thing you have to understand is that 'Kiven the singer' and 'Kiven the Jedi' were two entirely different people. I had a chance to see him and his band perform once, and I could hardly believe that the man on stage was the same person who lived in this enclave. He would just strut and prance about the stage like a madman, and his voice was so powerful you couldn't help but be enraptured by it. Women just went crazy for him; I guess it was a combination of his voice and the fact that he was rather easy on the eyes." She spoke this last words with a subtle grin.

"I can't imagine the Jedi Masters approved of him singing in a band, of all things."

"No, they didn't, but he didn't care. But the funny thing is, when the concert was over and he returned here, he was Kiven the Jedi again."

"And what was he like as a Jedi?"

"He was totally different. He was so painfully shy that you could barely get a 'hello' out of him, and like you he never spoke to anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. I think I was the only one who ever managed to reach him. Of course, what we usually ended up talking about was how much he hated his master, Atris. What was it that he had called her? Oh, she was a 'glittering gem of hatred'."

"I wonder what one could learn from a teacher one despises, if anything."

"Kiven never talked about his past, but I knew the signs of an abusive childhood when I saw them. What he needed was time – time to come out of his shell and time to build trust between him and the others. But Atris wouldn't give that to him. She kept pushing him to develop his abilities, but she never once showed him an ounce of encouragement or kindness."

"I have heard of his exceptional ability with the Force."

"'Exceptional' doesn't begin to describe what he was capable of. I remember one time where he came across some farmers who were being attacked by this pack of wild kath hounds, and Kiven just shocked the beasts to death with a wave of his hands. Seeing him hurling bolts of lightning with such ease...well...it was quite terrifying, to be honest."

"I thought that sort of ability was only practised by the Sith."

"It is, usually, but Atris did not believe that abilities were inherently slanted towards either the light side or the dark side, and felt that he ought to master every conceivable means of using the Force. Maybe there's some truth to what she said, I don't know, but I'm certain Kiven was just a pawn she used to further her own agenda. She didn't care one bit about him as a person, she just wanted to parade him in front of the Jedi Council to demonstrate how effective her teachings were. I think that's why he hated her so much – he knew she was just using him – and I just know that part of the reason he went off to fight the Mandalorians was simply to get away from her. That's probably why Atris turned on him so thoroughly after that whole horrible business at Malachor. I can't help but think that Kiven's exile was the only sensible thing to do; it can't be a good thing to have two powerful Jedi under the same roof who utterly loathe one another."

"And now this 'powerful Jedi' is on the loose in the Outer Rim. What would happen if he were to fall to the dark side?"

"I don't think that will happen," said Eliana with a distinct tone of irritation. "If you actually knew him, you'd know that he was one of the kindest, most compassionate individuals imaginable. He was always acutely aware of the suffering of others, and he always wanted to do the right thing, even if it meant defying the Jedi Council. And don't believe that rot you hear about him being Darth Revan. Only Atris believes that, and she's not exactly someone who can speak objectively on the matter."

_ And I suppose you are such a person?_ Aina wondered. Judging from the way she spoke of the Exile, she began to suspect that Eliana's feelings for him ran a little bit deeper than a desire for mere friendship.

"I'm sorry," said Eliana, "I've probably wasted enough of your time already. Just remember what I've said."

She departed without saying a word more, leaving Aina with even more uncertainty about her future than before.

* * *

That night she returned to the _Ebon Hawk _and began reading the Exile's "manifesto." Aina assumed that it would be little more than some angry screed, but to her surprise it was written in a tone that was almost academic. She found several passages in particular rather striking:

_I did not write this essay as a warning, as I would be naïve in the extreme to think that anyone in a position of authority within the Jedi Order will be reading this. Instead, I write this as a post-mortem for the Jedi in the hope that someone, somewhere will learn from their mistakes and attempt to salvage something from the ashes. The path of the current Jedi Order leads to nowhere but its own ruin, and it is far too late for a change of course. And I do not believe that we will have to wait decades or centuries to see the total destruction of the Jedi to come about, and while many will blame the Order's enemies for this turn of events, the truth is that these mortal wounds are entirely self-inflicted..._

_ History shows that, as civilisations decline, there is never any sort of collective self-reflection or introspection regarding their degraded state. Rather, the tendency is for civilisations to cling ever more tightly to the very ways of living that are doing them in, and adhere ever more stringently to values and beliefs that no longer make sense. They prefer death to compromise, and I don't believe I'm being presumptuous when I say that the Jedi are following precisely this downward trajectory. The only future for them is stagnation, then irrelevance, and finally, extinction..._

_ The Sith believe that an individual ought to be ruled by his emotions, while the Jedi believe that one ought to completely suppress his emotions. The former philosophy is dangerous, while the latter is simply unattainable. The entire Jedi philosophy seems to me to be grounded on an inherently false view of the individual – that he can simply "turn off" his emotions and shuffle them off to some dark corner of his mind where they will never resurface. But this is absurd – emotions are by their very nature involuntary. One who has spent any time with the Jedi will surely notice that many of them are quick to anger and possess an understated but very consummate arrogance. They may speak of their "inner peace" or "emotional control" but beneath that thin façade is a raging torrent..._

_ ...The first precept of the Jedi Code is, "There is no emotion, there is peace," something which I'm sure even many non-Jedi are familiar with. But what most people don't know is that, at one time, this precept read, "Emotion, yet peace." I consider this a critical distinction, because the original formulation states quite clearly that we are all creatures of emotion, yet what is important is that we do not let these emotions rule over us...an inherently sensible philosophy. But by stating that "There is no emotion" the Jedi Code places an impossible demand upon its adherents. The end result of this absurd suppression of all feeling is not the order of calm, stoic warriors that Jedi believe themselves to be, but rather a collection of emotionally stunted, socially crippled individuals unable to deal with the real world..._

Aina paused for a moment. Though she was loath to admit it, the Exile was putting into words the exact same discomfort she had been experienced all throughout her tenure in the Dantooine Enclave. She continued reading:

_There is no greater example of the folly of the Jedi than their prohibition against romantic attachments. When a group of men and women are kept in close company for any length of time, it is inevitable that some will pursue intimate relations with each other, and no amount of dogma, decrees, or doctrine can prevent this. This ought to be an obvious truth to anyone who has spent any length of time in the real world, but the Jedi Order always had trouble dealing with obvious truths. There is an old saying, that love burns hottest in secret, and nowhere is this more evident than in your typical Jedi academy. And by forcing its members to keep these relationships secret, the Jedi guarantee that individuals will go to any length to keep th__eir__ secret__s__ safe, which can only lead to an unhappy outcome, to say the least. __The Jedi claim that such attachments will lead to the dark side, but the evidence doesn't really back this up. At one point in the time the Jedi were permitted to marry, and there were no more defections to the dark side during that period than there are now. In fact, the number of fallen Jedi has actually increased dramatically over the past few years, swelling the ranks of the Sith, which ought to force the Jedi Council to engage in some serious reflection on why so many of their own are being driven away. But I am certain that the only conclusion they would reach is that even stricter enforcement __of their tenets__, not relaxation, is __what is needed__..._

_ The Order's treatment of children deserves to be singled out as being especially abhorrent. They claim that only children are suitable for training because, as adults, they are too rigidly set in their ways to master the Force. Perhaps there is some truth to this, but the real reason they do not train adults is because __an adult may have developed critical thinking faculties, and he may turn these faculties on the Jedi philosophy, which will lead him to start asking difficult and inconvenient questions regarding the dogma. But a child will accept unthinkingly anything an authority figure tells him, ensuring that he will never question what he is taught..._

_ Consider, for a moment, what the Jedi do to children. They take them from their families, __inform__ them that they can never seem them again, that they cannot have any attachments to anyone outside the Order, and that the very worst thing they can do is fall in love, because doing so earns you a one-way ticket to the dark side. In what __way__ can this possibly be construed as acceptable? My father was a violent spice addict who would often beat me for no reason whatsoever, but even this seems mild in comparison to what the Jedi inflict on children. They do not even call them "children" but the rather use the absurd terminology of "younglings." Perhaps their consciences would not rest so easy if they called children what they are..._

Aina understood why the Jedi would forbid their members from reading this, because it was nothing short of a complete evisceration of their way of life. Suddenly, the description of the Exile as "the best and worst Jedi" made a whole lot more sense.

_The Jedi, both individually and collectively, are dominated by rigid, black-and-white thinking. It was never stated, but always understood, that, as Jedi, they decided what was right and wrong, and that anyone who opposed the Order must be malicious, evil, depraved, and quite possibly aligned with the Sith. __This directly contradicts my own experience, which tells me that people are not good because of their rank, station, or birth. Rather, there are often good in _spite_ of these things. But by deciding that they alone are the arbiters of what is good and just, the Jedi have moved into the territory of the zealot and the deranged. And it is the most fanatical members of the Order that are in the greatest danger of falling to the dark side, because they are the most likely to pursue any course of action, no matter how extreme, in support of their principles..._

_ I cannot imagine anywhere where __there__ is __less freedom of thought than in a typical Jedi enclave. Questioning of their philosophy and values is either discouraged or forbidden outright. By closing their minds to all dissenting opinions, by insisting __on__ rigid, unthinking adherence to doctrine, they have ensured that their beliefs and behaviour will only become ever more extreme over time. One Jedi Master, who shall remain nameless, seemed to believe that there was something very wrong with the Order (which is true enough), but her proposed solution to this problem was that she ought to establish some secret academy in a remote location in order to remain free from "impure" influences. I doubt very much that this sort of deranged thinking is an aberration __amongst the Jedi__..._

_ There is not a great deal of what one might call "joy" amongst the Jedi. Rather, the impression one has is that they are a thoroughly miserable lot. They do not pursue __the arts, for they regard such things as frivolity. They do not read anything but their own texts. They do not pursue any sort of interests or hobbies beyond the Order. __Many never even leave the enclave and have next to no interaction with non-Jedi. They are consumed by barely-restrained bitterness and resentment towards the life that has made them so unhappy, yet which they are unable to escape. The Jedi Order takes away love and gives its people dogma in return, and most of them seem to regard this is an absolutely smashing bargain, not realising it is at the very root of their discontent. Is it any wonder, then, why so many leave to join the Sith? How else could the Sith fill their ranks, if not by offering the Jedi something the Order denies them? All of this serves to underscore the brutal emptiness that exists amongst the Jedi, who are, at their core, little more than black holes that need to be filled with anything, but above all with hatred._

Having reached the end of the essay, Aina set the datapad aside, lost in thought. Her experience with the Jedi was limited, but she could not dispute the truth of what the Exile had written. If what he said about the Jedi was true, then they were not the sort of people whom she would want to stand alongside in the battle against the Sith. Even Carth would make a far better comrade-in-arms than a typical Jedi.

_Black holes that need to be filled with anything._

Aina stood up. She had reached a decision: she would continue in her training and obtain her lightsaber, and then she would depart. She would learn from the Jedi whatever she deemed useful, and discard the rest. If that meant she had to face the Sith alone, then so be it.

* * *

When she returned to the Jedi Enclave the following day, she noticed that there was a charge in the air, a sense of nervousness and tension. The rest of the Jedi bore anxious expressions on their faces and talked amongst themselves in hushed tones, while others restlessly milled about. The only exception to this was Master Dorak, who was unable to conceal his excitement and walked about with an idiotic-looking grin on his face.

Unable to determine the cause of this collective anxiety, Aina asked Bastila about it.

"We've just received word that Master Atris shall be visiting this enclave in the next few days," she explained. "I am not sure what the purpose of this visit is; Atris has become extremely reclusive over these past few years. Whatever her reason is, the Jedi Council has decided not to reveal it."

Aina just shrugged. "I fail to see how this concerns me."

"Listen very carefully. As you are a mere apprentice, it is highly unlikely that Master Atris will want to speak with you. But if she does, then it is imperative that you _do not mention _the Exile. Do not mention him, the Battle of Malachor, the Mandalorian Wars, or even that awful music he made. Doing so will cause her to become...unreasonable."

Aina looked down and rubbed her forehead. "_There is no emotion, there is peace._"

Bastila ignored her sardonic remark. "Just be sure to be on your best behaviour," she said before walking away.

She had absolutely no desire to meet Master Atris, and considered spending the entire length of her visit in the _Ebon Hawk._ Yet she wanted to see these Handmaidens of hers, and a part of her was curious to see the woman that the Exile despised so much. Would she be one of those "black holes" he had described? Only time would tell.


End file.
